With all the planting and talk of life cycles last week, the children made a fascinating discovery early this week in one of the base camps. Near the mud kitchen we have a stump of a tree, the inside has turned into lovely broken down dead wood that the children like to scoop out and add to their cooking creations. As they were scooping, the children unearthed an unusual looking creature. They gathered around to take a look. “Is it a slug?” asked one child. “It’s a snail without a shell” offered another. With a little bit of research, we realised that we had discovered the larvae of a stag beetle! We also discovered that these infants can live in dead wood for 3-4 years before emerging above ground as beetles.
After some discussion, the children thought it might be best if the Larvae was returned to the tree and it should be protected from further disturbance. With Lizzie’s help, the Larvae was recovered and then the children set about making the stump a roof with leaves and bark. A fence was ringed around the tree using sticks and wool and a sign saying “Stag Beatle House” was attached. The children also gathered a spare boundary flag and attached it to their fence just to make sure that everyone knew that the stump was officially out of bounds! This demonstrated a really mature understanding for having to protect our wildlife and their habitats, even if this meant changing our daily habits.
Construction has been a big theme this week, the children helped make a frame from large wooden branches and covered it with a ground sheet. They also used their paints to decorate some of the frame and then it was furnished inside with another ground sheet so one child at a time could sit inside and enjoy a relaxing story or a chat with a friend who could sit at the door way. The builders at the station donated some more pallets to us this week and so a new obstacle course was created. The children started this project by making a plan on paper – carefully designing what should go where. The plan was being drawn on a large roll of paper and that wonderfully magical thing happened, when one child’s drawing starts meeting up with another’s and connections of ideas are formed. However, all the best plans in the world need changing when it comes to actual construction, as children helped build their idea they would test it out and help make changes so that problems could be solved.
The younger children have been having a very creative week – the educators in the other camp have been helping children make their own resources for their imaginative play. They made dolls out of paper, together with accessories. The children have spent hours creating stories and narratives for their dolls. They also got to do some tool work this week, cutting log cookies with the bow saw which were then decorated with paints, pens and natural resources from the forest floor.
They have also been making a musical den – a structure has been created and children have been making their own musical instruments to go inside and this has made for a great little forest music studio where children can experiment with sounds, rhythm and songs.
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham