Our little farm!
The children were so excited on Monday to find a farmyard activity set up to explore! We had been singing ‘Old McDonald had a farm’ lots last week, and the children really enjoyed looking at our books about different animals, so we had so much fun finding hay for the farm yard, using sticks to build a little barn, and finding tiny stones as food for the animals! The children also love to sing ‘bah bah rainbow sheep’ and when we sing this song, we always choose our favourite colour to sing about; so, the children had an opportunity to make their own toy sheep out of sticks and cotton wool! We dipped the cotton wool into coloured water, and watched the colour soak in. It was a great chance for the children to experiment with mixing colours. We then covered a thick stick with glue and rolled it in the coloured cotton. They loved to show their finished toys to their friends!
We had a super windy day in the middle of the week! So, we decided the thing we needed most would be flags! We each had a piece of paper, and coloured chalks to decorate with. Some children drew pirates, some drew birds, and some drew a “windy garden” with all the flowers blowing in the wind! The children used their understanding of sounds and letters to help sound out their name, and some practiced writing their names on their flags too. We tied them with string to the branches of the bendy trees, and watched them fly back and forth, beautiful!
Another activity the children really enjoyed this week was making a bug hotel! We already have some dotted around our forest, so we decided to add to our chain of small hotels! The children helped to find the logs we’d cut, with holes for the bugs to live in. They used their fine motor skills to cut the string with scissors and tie the logs together with a strong knot. We were so excited to see if any bugs would come and visit by the end of the day, so we went on a little bug hunt to see which animals might be moving in soon. We were happy to see some wood louse and ear wigs in the hotel by the end of the day!
The children had the chance to try some sawing this week! They did amazing listening to our safety rules to make sure they were keeping themselves and their friends safe. We used a bow saw to cut small circles from a tree branch, which we call ‘tree cookies’. The children were so proud when they’d finished the sawing, we could see their feeling of accomplishment on their faces!
Our favourite thing in the Forest this week has definitely been our new swing! The children have loved seeing how high they can go and have been great at talking about our “boundaries” while another friends is on the swing, because we don’t want to get too close! This has also helped the children get used to turn taking and negotiating with their friends… “I’ll have 5 more swings, then it’s your turn!”
We hope you have had as much fun as we have this week, and have lovely weekends all!
Little Forest Folk
Morden