Tweety Birds!
We really enjoy changing and adding cool things to our forest space to keep the space feeling magical and sparking new ideas for play. Our ‘shop’ front which we had at the front of the forest has been a really lovely area for the children to share their ideas and collaborate with their imaginative play, taking on roles of shopkeepers and customers. Recently, this space has been used much more as a ‘nature look out’ so that we can safely watch the robins which come to visit us throughout the day to nibble on any crumbs of lunch or snack which have been left behind! The birds come nice and close to where we sit when we sit behind the lookout; we can poke our head out through the window and call ‘tweet tweet!’ to see if they sing back to us and see how good they are at finding treats! The children spent some time this week decorating our bird look out with chalk colours, leaves and branches to make it more ‘camouflaged’ and inviting to the birds!
As the evenings have been super clear and chilly this week, the children have been working up their skills by doing puzzles and block threading activities! They have been using lots of collaboration and teamwork to share out the pieces equally, asking their friends for help if they are unsure of where a piece would go, and being so proud of themselves when they have finished the picture or pattern!
Our painting area has been a favourite this week as well! We’ve incorporated some conversations about the ‘zones of regulation’, introducing colours as a way of equipping children with ways of describing how they’re feeling. We have started with blue colours and given examples of things that might make us feel ‘blue’, like feeling tired, sad, unwell, and talking about things that can help us then we’re feeling ‘blue’. We’ll use the painting area as a way of introducing the other colours involved with the zones of regulation and talking about how we can use them.
Last week’s Friday cooking activity was a real treat! The children helped Chef Spike to make their own flapjack recipe. The children helped to pour out the right amount of breakfast oats, banana, honey and golden syrup into the mixture, smelling the ingredients and giving words to describe the textures “It is so runny! And sticky!”. When we had a try of our delicious flapjacks, we had a chat about which ingredients we would like to put in them next time, and new flavours to try! It’s been wonderful to see how the children’s interest in food is developing with the cooking activities; their recognition and understanding of ingredients each time we use them is getting stronger and stronger.
We hope you all have a lovely weekend, enjoy the bright blue skies and frosty mornings!
Little Forest Folk
Morden