This week the forest floor has become a carpet of Autumn leaves and for the most part we have played in golden sunshine with fresh, Autumnal air that has surprised us with how mild it’s been.
The children have been talking about emotions and feelings this week, and Louise supported the children in an activity that gave them the opportunity to explore this further. They started off looking at emotion cards – studying the faces and trying to guess which emotion is being portrayed in the expression. Children made some beautiful guesses, and this also demonstrated a range of vocabulary being present to express feelings – ‘is he confused? Maybe he is surprised but it’s not a good surprise so also a little sad?”. This also opened discussion around new vocabulary “What does hilarious mean? What is disgusted?”. Next the children got to decorate paper plates to represent an emotion of their choice and they adorned their plates with woolly hair and other items. What was really impressive was when the new vocabulary started to pop up in their conversations with other children and educators – when Xiao told a joke a child replied, “that is funny…but not hilarious”!
On Remembrance Day we had a brief discussion about times in history when adults forgot to be kind and gentle and how some people had to try and do something to help those people who were getting hurt and made to feel sad, and how these people now serve as a huge reminder to us all. We explained that in order to help remember – we have a special day in the year when we look at Poppy flowers and think about those people, maybe even thinking of a kind thing we could do for someone today. Red and black paints where provided and soon our art tables and drying lines were awash with abstract representations of the Poppy Flower – the red and black paints dramatically blooming all over the pages.
Diwali is also just on the horizon and so the Festival of Light really linked in well with the theme of kind deeds prevailing all else. Children have helped make thumb pots with the clay to represent the little oil lamps that were lit throughout the land so Rama and Sita could find their way home. The children wanted to make this bright and colourful so once dried, they selected a range of paint colours and filled our forest with these gorgeous little representations. Kate also showed children another Hindu custom that is performed for Diwali when people make Rangoli patterns. The children thought this looked amazing and naturally wanted to have a go at making one themselves. So began the experimentation of dying rice with a range of food colours and letting it dry before making some intricate patterns with them.
The parakeets have been exploring turmeric in its different forms and using it to experiment with making some natural paints and their creative expression didn’t stop there! They had chance to touch and strum the ukulele and they began to make their own tunes and inventing song words while their playmates joined in with bells to make sweet music. Children were presented with some large scallop shells and they decided to go around the forest hiding them for others to seek in an interactive scavenger hunt. As they explored the forest looking for this ‘mermaid treasure’ the children noticed a bicycle in the river! This was an opportunity to talk to the children about being responsible and keeping junk and man-made items out of water systems and their hero, Miranda attempted to get it out but couldn’t quite get access to it. So, a plan will have to be hatched and another attempt tried again next week.
We hope you have a lovely weekend and see you all net week for more forest fun!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham