Our Week in the Forest...
We have been singing our hearts out this week with more and more children starting up Christmas carols with friends joining in or simply starting to request more of the songs that have been introduced over the last couple of months!
It’s such a heartening thing to see children, who might normally be too shy to speak up in front of a group, join in with singing or actions when they’ve been caught up in the excitement of a song. The “Moose Song” has become a favourite which is a call and response song that the children have really started to get the hang of. It has prompted some questions and observations from the children “Why is he feeling sad?” “Now he is happy!” and led to discussions of why this might be and their understanding that the answers are all in the song if they listen carefully. The elephant song swaps out the first initial of each child’s name as it is sung and they are really starting to get the hang of recognising the real names from the silly rhyming words. They find the song very funny (as do the educators) and it is a real group bonding song as they all turn to the child being sung about and laugh together at the silliness of it all.
Music is such a fantastic tool for changing the mood of a group and it can be used to bring focus and calm things down or to stir everybody up and get them feeling happy and energetic. When we are faced with our colder or wetter days, singing a funny song with lots of actions is a fantastic way of distracting the children and have them generate some lovely body heat to fill their cosy waterproofs with!
The activities this week have been wide ranging, from building balancing courses from the loose parts available to using their imaginations and fine motor skills to create take home items made of clay. We turned over logs to search for beastie friends and talked about why we don’t see so many bugs and bees at this time of year. Our forest fox has become a staple feature of the setting and the children love to watch what it does as it weaves in and out of the hedges and sometimes stops to watch the children back!
We created a den type structure out of pallets and planks and the children decided it was Santa’s sleigh. They requested help to tie a rope so they could act out being the reindeer pulling Santa along and they also took turns climbing up and over the structure to play at being Santa going down the chimney!
We went for an explore in the Palace and discovered all the decorations and nativity scenes set up inside the church. Sitting in this beautiful space allowed for the children to point out features like the stained glass windows and carvings and discuss with each other what they could see.
We have said good bye to some of our Little Forest Folk friends this week and we wish them and their families all the luck in the world for their exciting changes. We will miss them very much but know that they will go on into their new nurseries full of confidence and will wow their new teachers!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham