What a glorious welcome back our children have had this week with the beautiful sunshine and the stunning bluebells and tulips to start off the summer term! The children were excited to be able to take off their waterproofs and enjoy the warmer weather. With the warmer weather the children have been exploring lots of water play and other sensory experiences such as play doh and gloop! The play doh was very popular when we made it, so much so we had to line up 3 or 4 picnic tables in a banquet-like manner to seat all the children! The table was full of creativity and collaboration, with dough and cookie cutters flying all over the place.
The next day we made gloop using cornflour, water, and food colouring. The lovely sensory feeling of gloop meant the children were quick to dive in with their hands, allowing it to slowly run through their hands like slime but then play with the gloop to make it feel like a solid. This illusion of it being solid led the children to try to transport it from one vessel to another which caused a lot of fun and messy play!
The warm weather also led to lots of group play. Perhaps the most popular of these activities was the parachute. The parachute is a lovely way to get the children to work together but also brings up lots of possibilities of conversations around colour, numbers, and direction. There is always a buzz around the children when playing with it and most likely this is due to the lovely sensory element of the colourful parachute floating in the air with the sun shining through it. It is always extra exciting when we are able to run under the parachute and find our way through to the other side with the parachute causing our hair to be stood on end from the static friction!
The lovely weather also means lots of gardening for us and you may notice in our small greenhouse that we have many things sprouting already! We will be keeping an eye on our plants and hopefully transitioning them into our allotment very soon.
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Little Forest Folk
Morden