The sudden onset of different weathers this week has provided the children with so many learning opportunities. With wonderful sunshine the children were digging and filling buckets to make mud castles and pretending they were at the beach - many holes were left in the forest floor. As the rain began, the children were fascinated as they noticed the holes fill up to create the best puddles that they could all run and jump into, creating the biggest splashes! We saw the river next to us flowing much faster and deeper this week and so the children decided they could make a river and continued to dig to channel the water between the puddles. Our Little Forest Folk-ers also learned about dams and how some animals build them using sticks to stop the water flowing so the children tried their hand at creating some of their own, making piles of sticks within the puddles.
With the thunder and lightning, we were fascinated by how loud it can be and how the lightning shoots across the sky. The children enjoyed creating their own thunder and lightning pictures, zig zagging patterns across their paper and others tried to recreate the sounds. We clapped, stomped, banged crates like drums before finding the best way to recreate the thunder and lightning. The educators put up a very low ground sheet like a tarpaulin which the children could jump and hit, pretending it was a cloud. It would make a wonderful rumbling sound and the jumps were just like lightning!
After all the stomping the children did trying to create rumbles of thunder, they were inspired to become dinosaurs and were roaring around the forest looking at their footprints that they were leaving behind. We had dinosaur dens being built using the logs we had left for us from the tree surgeon that visited the site at the weekend. The children were fascinated about these logs and learning about the holes in them made by insects and woodpeckers and decided they would make excellent caves for dinosaurs. We then used all different toy dinosaurs in the den to create wonderful small world play with each dinosaur making friends, climbing logs to reach trees for leaves for food. The educators introduced herbivore, carnivore and omnivore and the names of all the different toy dinosaurs we have to the children. The children then noticed that the dinosaurs left their own footprints in the mud too, so we made some fossils by pressing the different dinosaurs into clay to create footprints. This then became a dinosaur land with bridges being built along with caves and boulders, adding to the dens from the day before.
With all the puddles around the forest each day, other children decided that they needed boats to travel around. We had long canal boats made from lines of crates through puddles and lifeboats made with singular crates and giant sticks as oars. The children travelled all over the world in their boats and would greet their friends on other boats and when someone would get out of a boat, the lifeboats came to rescue them! The children pretended to swim through the puddles to the safety of the shores where they could then pretend they were at the beach, eating at the wonderful cafes they created.
One of our children brought in some silkworms for all of their friends to see. One had begun to create a cocoon and the other was already cocooned. The children were fascinated and remembered how they come out of cocoons as moths like caterpillars emerge as butterflies. This sparked some creative role plays of insects in nature. The children pretended they were silkworms and caterpillars and would wrap themselves up in material before flying around the forest. But oh no, a giant spider web! The children used wool and string wrapping and tying around climbing logs to create a trap for their pretend butterfly friends to get caught in. They then had to find a way to escape before the spider returned. The children worked together as a team to figure out how to get the butterflies out and used scissors and unwrapped little sections. It was just like a butterfly or moth coming out of their cocoon!
We hope you all have had a wonderful week too and we cannot wait to see what next week brings. Have a lovely weekend all!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham