Crunchy Autumn Leaves!
Yet another beautiful Autumn week in the forest! It's been amazing to see the children getting so involved with continuing the activities they love and requesting teacher-led activities which we were enjoying last week, turning them into more child-led experiences! The children have been asking to use the measuring tapes a lot around the forest, asking to use them to measure the lengths and widths of different logs and sticks, independently! The explorers have also been taking lots of opportunities to talk about each other's heights, and we introduced marking their heights on the big blackboard near the fire circle!
Another set of fun activities was introduced this week, we’ve started some interesting science experiments! The children have been using pipettes and little trays to mix oil with food colouring, to see how the colours mix and how the materials react with each other. The children really enjoyed using the new science equipment and were great at taking care of the resources by treating them delicately and helping to pack them away safely when they were finished, “We don’t want to lose them! I want to do this again!”
One morning this week, the children showed lots of interest in finding ‘things in the forest that don’t help the forest grow’, like bits of paper or plastic that have been forgotten, so we turned our wheelbarrow into a ‘recycling truck’ so we could have a big team helping to clean the forest! The children loved this activity, paying lots of attention to the detail of their environment, and showing so much care for our natural space! They enjoyed this so much that the educators ended up hiding some old toilet roll holders around so that they could find some more!
We have had lots of activities exploring Remembrance Day, we have the lovely book “Where poppies now grow” to talk about why we remember this day and the importance of the poppies! This had led to lots of lovely activities around making our own cardboard poppies, and inspiring conversations about our grandparents and people in our extended family!
Our space at the front of the forest is always changing, with new activities or things to climb placed there often, and the children have loved climbing on hay bales this week! They have been using their strength and team work to roll the hay bales into “a boat!” or “a beach” to add to their imaginative play! This has also offered lots of opportunities for climbing and jumping, which we always love!!
We hope you all have a lovely weekend; we can’t wait to see you all next week!
Little Forest Folk
Morden