Forest full of Sounds!
Our Morden forest had some interesting additions when we arrived on Monday morning! The forest was full of squishy letter shapes in all interesting colours! They were hung up in the trees, and the forest explorers had such a great time exploring their space in search of letters that they recognised. We started by looking for the letters that our names started with and talked with each other about other words those letters started with! The children were also using their maths skills to count how many letters we had found!
Maths has been used a lot in the forest this week, as we used a measuring tape to measure how tall we all are! The children were helping each other by reminding their friends to "stand still and tall!" and by reading the numbers that we could see on the measuring tape. We can't wait to develop this activity further by using a space in the forest to mark our heights, and watch the marks climb higher as we grow!
We have been super lucky in the forest, as we have found some more stag beetle babies living in our forest space! It's so exciting when we find these interesting insects; they live in the dead wooden logs which we have dotted around the perimeter of the space. We have found a few groups of them now, each of them at a different stage of their growth. The three that we found this week are in their larvae stage, each of them around 10cm long and thick like a thumb! We found them near the reading area and spent lots of time watching them eat holes through the dead wood log and asking lots of interesting questions about what they are doing. From our research, they could stay in their larvae stage for a couple of years before they turn into a beetle! So, we're being very careful when we find them, and place rainbow ribbons to protect the areas where they are nesting.
The children have been getting so much out of our music sessions we have some mornings at the circle. The children have been using our new instruments with lots of respect and care, sharing them with each other when they would like a turn of another instrument. We practice playing them slowly, quietly, fast, and loud! Our musicians love to play along when educator Joe plays their favourite songs on the guitar.
We've been so lucky to have so many bright sunny days this autumn; all of these bright yellow and orange colours are making our forest space looking extra beautiful as we explore and play! It's been extra beautiful around the fire circle, as the smoke and steam shines through the light between the tree branches! At our fire circle this week, we decided to treat ourselves with some hot chocolate! We spoke about watching the steam rise from the pot of milk, and how it looks "like a train!" The yummy hot chocolate warmed us up on the chilly morning, and we played our new favourite 'animal guessing game' while we drank, where the teacher gives us clues as to which animal they're thinking of!
We hope you all have a lovely weekend and are enjoying the autumn colours as much as we are!
Little Forest Folk
Morden