The odd shower of rain came to play in the forest this week and was greeted with much merriment from the children. The week had started with children harvesting the pumpkins that had been growing in their vegetable garden and their interest in watercolour paints gave opportunity to pair the two things together. The children used the pumpkins as a canvas - making their pale-yellow flesh a myriad of colours! When the rain came, the little jars of liquid watercolours started to fill with water and so began a spontaneous activity of mixing the colours together and transferring the coloured water to larger trays for some visually stunning water play!
The water play triggered memories of washing the hairdressers training head and the children requested that she join them at the water tray. Before long, her hair was being dyed with the use of some paintbrushes and the coloured water. Some children approached and said, “This salon needs a door!” and so another type of play started happening close by. A group of children started fetching loose parts and wooden planks from the forest to make the door and another child said, “We will need cement!”.
Buckets of mud and water started to get added together, the ratio’s tweaked as they mixed, until the perfect consistency was formed. Then began the construction - piecing pieces of the wood together with thick layers of mud oozing between them. There was lots of discussion and ideas as to why the cement wasn’t working. “Maybe we haven’t added enough?” contributed one child and so began a wonderful construction experiment. To think, this all emerged from painting a pumpkin!
In both groups this week we have been celebrating Black History Month. The parakeets have been sharing a lovely book all about the legendary Ella Fitzgerald. A large venue would refuse Ella a chance to sing on their stage but her famous friend, Marilyn Monroe called the venue and explained that if they let Ella sing on stage for a week, Marilyn would sit in the audience and draw lots of media attention, making the venue a popular place to be! While it is true that the first crowds arrived to try and catch a glimpse of Marilyn, it wasn’t long before Ella became their focus with her talented voice. Soon, Ella was famous in her own right. This led to a lot of discussion about friendships and trying to understand how Ella felt being told she couldn’t sing at a venue because of the colour of her skin.
The Foxes have been sharing a story called “Coming to England” about some children and their families coming to the UK on the Windrush and how they rebuilt their lives in a country so far away from friends and family. This led to some great conversations about our two social bubbles, “What if the parakeets needed some of our play equipment and they needed us to go into their group and help them build something - would you leave your other friends who are in the foxes group to go and help them?”, “What if the parakeets made you feel unwanted, called you names and didn’t let you join their snack circle or their games?”. The children thought that helpers should be made welcome as this was “kind and gentle”.
We hope you all have lovely weekends and we look forward to seeing those booked onto holiday camp. For those who won’t be with us, have an amazing half term!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham