Our Week in the Forest...
This week has been very creatively explorative. Our children have experimented with music and sounds as well as creative projects based in clay, paint, construction and role play!
On a beautiful, sunny day we created a sound space under the central yew tree with a variety of resources suspended along a rope, all capable of eliciting a range of textured noises. It was fantastic to observe the moments of discovery as some of the children took notice of this set up and began to interact and experiment with the movement and sound of the pieces. As the day progressed, it was also interesting to see some of these same children returning several times to practice the swinging movements required to create a noise or to investigate further items.
We provided musical instruments for the children to explore and to see the natural social cohesion that forms when music is played together. Harriet and Katie supported the children in figuring out some of the wood blocks, xylophones, drums and shakers and encouraged the children to listen to each other as well as create sound themselves.
Later in the week we experimented with moulding clay, providing a calm focused activity for the children to practice their fine motor skills while building plant pots, candle holders and bowls that they will be able to take home. Some of the children became interested in the watery clay on the tables and discovered that it could be used for mark making so we helped them to mix clay and water together to create more of this paint.
When exploring the natural playground one morning on the way in to camp, some of the children discovered shimmering silver frost covering the logs and experiment drawing and writing on it with their fingers. This captured a lot of attention and they discovered endless drawing possibilities.
We have been gifted with some truly glorious, golden wintery sunshine which transformed the book area into a screen for creating shadow puppets and investigating the shapes and textures that could be made by holding up hands and found items. This was a great activity that could be enjoyed as either an audience or a performer!
A great many role play games based around knights and saving people have been played out over the last couple of weeks so it was decided that we should provide an opportunity for the children to have a try at making their own shields. They tried their hand at drawing the shape and cutting the cardboard, with support as needed, and then chose their colours to paint their shield and make them truly individual. Handles were created for gripping on the inside and off they galloped and ran to perform more daring deeds and have grand adventures!
We hope you all too have had a wonderful week and hope you have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham