The weather this week has been absolutely gorgeous in the forest, so the children have been making the most of the sunshine. We’ve been busy getting ready for Easter and learning all about the Easter story. The children have loved creating their own Easter Eggs, exploring all the different materials to decorate them with such as pens, pencils, gluing and sticking tissue paper and even some extra special paint that the children made themselves. This week one of our educators found some natural chalk on their weekend walk so brought it in for the children to explore. There were such big chunks of it, and we looked at how it could make marks, but also how we could break it and grate it. The children then added a little water to their finely grated chalk and loved the paint that it made, and they then used it on their Easter Eggs. It also made a wonderful icing for all the cakes made in the mud kitchen.
With our Easter Eggs all decorated, once they had dried, it was time to hide them all around the forest for the children to find. All the children showed great joy as they searched high, low, in and under the crates, tyres and bushes for their eggs and would rush back to the educators as soon as they had found some. We would ask how many they had found, and they showed confidence in counting out their eggs. They even used the language of more and less as they compared with each other how many they could find before setting off to hunt for some more. Once our eggs had been collected, we had a little think about what we could do with them. One child suggested that, “They need to go in a nest to be quiet, then they will hatch!”, what a wonderful idea! So, off everyone went to collect leaves, sticks and any material they could find around the forest to create nests. We stuck the leaves all on top of each other with sticks, some wool and even some beautiful pink tissue paper as then their nest will also look beautiful. We placed our Easter Eggs within our nests and have been waiting and checking every so often to see if our Easter Eggs hatch. Sadly, they haven’t quite hatched yet, but we will wait and see if they hatch next week.
With it being so sunny, we’ve been having a lot of time in the shade relaxing and resting with some lovely stories. It was a lovely break in the shade with water to sit and read some stories with our friends and educators. There were so many stories to read between all of the running and chasing games. We even attempted to read the stories together to a rhythmic beat where the children would repeat the line to the same beat. We enjoyed tapping our knees to the beat and trying to repeat back the words. We’ve also been laying down on the mats getting involved and engaged in ark making. We created wonderful and elaborate drawing of our families (each one even included a belly button!). We then had to label all of our drawings so that everyone would know who the pictures were of. So, we had to think carefully about the sound at the start of each name and work out which letter it needed. Even in the heat, there was a little breeze that the children noticed. So of course, this was a lovely opportunity to explore the wind and its effects. We got out some wool and paper and were able to design and create our very own kites. Then as the breeze came, we would hold them up to the sky and see if they would fly!
The eco-school council this week has been making some very important decisions in the forest. They have been thinking about all the things they have been learning and have created some special eco rules for everyone to follow. We wrote down each of the rues suggested and then they were illustrated to make sure that everyone would know what they are. Our eco-rules are:
No shaking and no breaking, be kind to the trees and don’t cut them!
Reuse our waste as much as possible.
Put litter in the bin, don’t pick things that belong to the forest, just litter.
Be kind and gentle to everyone all over the world.
We hope you all have a lovely week and hope that you all have a wonderful Easter break!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham