Our Week in the Forest...
The sun has returned this week, as have some of our more normal activities and although the snow was fun, everyone was glad to have the forest back to how they know and love it. This week we have had 3 main activities that the children have loved taking part in – face paints, making watches and painting flowers.
Imaginative play is always prominent in the forest and this has been enhanced throughout the week with our face paints. Although the designs were sometimes questionable, the children loved them; we had pirates, dinosaurs, Paw Patrol characters, butterflies and all sorts of other wonderful things. Children would race around the forest and it was a joy to hear the stories they were making up. They love listening to stories and their ability to create their own roleplays has really developed.
This week we also used tools to make watches. The children used the bowsaw to cut discs and then used a pinion drill - creating two holes in each disc. Once they had then thread string through the holes, they added numbers to their clocks. One simple activity meant the children were developing their mathematical knowledge, their physical development, communication and language, understanding and listening and many more aspects. Although the children didn’t fully understand the concept of time, they revelled in being able to tell each other what they thought the time was. Some had a better understanding saying, “One o’clock, four o’clock or ten o’clock”; others just enjoyed saying numbers, “It’s one hundred, it’s forty or it’s ten!”. Either way, the children enjoyed developing their mathematical knowledge in a way that was appropriate for them.
Finally, the children painted ‘flowers’. Really, they were some sort of pinecone but when painted, they looked like very pretty flowers or very yummy lollies. The children experimented with mixing colours before covering their hands and waterproofs and then finally the pinecones. We talked about how they could be Mother’s Day presents but we’re not sure how many will have made it all the way home…
The children have continued to climb, swing, laugh and learn – we hope you have a nice weekend and we’ll see you again next week for more of the same!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham