Here at our Morden Forest, the children’s interest in space is getting more and more detailed as we learn and spend time involved in activities! The children really loved searching for the Easter eggs hung up around the forest a few weeks ago, so we’ve decided to take down these Easter eggs and replace them with our Solar System’s planets! We started with using different techniques for drawing circles, (tracing from tins, using semicircle shapes, and a string to measure out from the middle) and used our strongest hands to safely cut out the big circles from the thick cardboard! After that, we chose which planets we wanted to create first, and looked at the colours we’d need, “Jupiter is brown and white, it has lots of storms!!”. As we painted, the children talked about their favourite things they know about the planet, “We couldn’t live there, it’s too gassy!”. They twisted their brushes around to make the swirling shapes of the storms we saw in the photos. The amount of detail from them was amazing! We can’t wait to finish painting the rest of the planets and hang them up around the forest!
Our gazebo has become the forest bandstand this week! We’ve been leaving the instruments out throughout the day and the children have been independently playing and caring for the instruments so well! We’ve loved making music for each other and playing along while our friends sing. The little musicians have also been using the circle area as their stage to play to the other children, inviting them to sit down while they play. We’ve been sitting with the educators to strum the ukulele while we play chords and plucking our own little tunes! We can’t wait to bring some more instruments into the forest for the children to experiment with.
Our waterplay set ups have been so cool in the forest recently! We’ve been collecting leaves and feathers from the ground to act as ‘boats’ to float down the pipes when the water is poured! The children have been using their maths skills by keeping count of how many bottles of water they could fit in the big flexi tubs! “It’s more than 20 bottles!” and recognising the numbers on the side of the measuring jugs. The children had a great time racing their feathers and leaves down the pipes, “I’ve got the most water, my one will be so so fast!”
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Morden