Our Week in the Forest...
The clouds hanging over Twickenham opened this week and the children got to experience what being a Little Forest Folk-er truly entails – finding the joy in puddles, mud and rain. It was an experience they embraced and we can proudly report how happy our children have been during their rainy forest adventures.
We had one group of children collecting little jugs of water and carrying them over to a group of trees and pouring the water down the trunk. At first this appeared to be an action they seemed to enjoy repeating but then suddenly, a project became evident - “We are making a house” said one child. The children became busy with the puddle of water at the base of the tree putting their hands into it and pulled them out, bearing handfuls of mud. They began to apply this to the trunk of the tree, each child adding more and more mud.
As well as being a primer for children’s growing immune systems, muddy play is incredibly inclusive. Younger children can engage with it and find lots of sensory stimulation while older children were seen to use this open-ended resource to engage with transporting schemas and thinking creatively about how it can be used in their construction projects.
The tarp shelter that projected the snack circle has also been a wonderful source of fun as rain cascaded down the roof and created little waterfalls that the children took an immense joy in collecting. They used saucepans, cups and flexi tubs and even worked out that if they poked the roof with a stick they could make an even bigger waterfall appear. This water was then transported back to the mud kitchen so children could continue in their mixing, stirring, tipping and pouring fun.
This week, there was also another exciting development. With the children doing so well with remembering rules, educators thought this would be the perfect time to introduce them to the tools. The children started with the bow saw and worked really hard, listening to the educators they put a glove on their helping hand, respecting the boundary area around other people also were using tools. They applied a lot of concentration when it came to working with an educator to push and pull the saw to make their first tree cookie. As they become more and more familiar with safely using the tools with educators, they can start to drive their own projects and make their own resources. We can’t wait to see all the wonderful things they are going to add to our forest and all the skills they will be taking away from these experiences.
Our forest site now has its own bread maker and we couldn’t help but notice how much our children are seeking out opportunities for tipping and pouring. It was no surprise that the children couldn’t wait to help Virginia in building their first Little Forest Folk loaf! They rolled their sleeves up and got tipping, pouring and kneading. Xiao and Christie have been like Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith from the Great British Bake-Off as they sampled the efforts and were very impressed with the results! It’s official – the Little Forest Folk-ers at Twickenham are star bakers!
We hope you all have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham