"Take her to Sea, Mr Murdoch!"
The weather has been a beautiful combination of crisp and mild, and around the art the table the children in the Foxes group crowded around Xiao asking "Tell us a story!".
"What would you like, Snow White? Cinderella?"
"No" said one child, "can you tell us about the ship that hit the iceberg?"
"The Titanic?"
"Yeah!" everyone cheered.
To aid with the story, Xiao and the children looked at some black and white photographs, "…it was many years ago, a ship set sail for America and it was going to be the fastest ship ever and people believed it was unsinkable. On board was a girl named Rose and a boy named Jack...."
"...and Elsa from Frozen 2 because she can swim in the sea" contributed one of the children.
During the story the children looked up the ship's engine room, marvelling at the huge pistons and furnaces. In no time at all, the art table was transformed into a Belfast shipyard as a junk model of the Titanic was constructed. The body was painted black and it had 3 magnificent funnels adorned with Sellotape and flags! "and here is Rose" explained a girl as she cut out her very life like drawing and placed her on the ship. Next the children wanted to test if their model would float! Educators helped the children fill a huge tub with water and the children helped each other to lower the ship down to the ocean. An educator was on hand with some probing questions "What is making your brilliant ship float so well?"
The theme of transport didn't stop there, with a super large aircraft being constructed using large logs and planks, the children painted it all the colours of the rainbow. Imaginative play then ensued with Jack and Rose jumping from their ship, to their aeroplane, dodging icebergs and skyscrapers!
The Parakeets have had a magical visitor this week. Miranda found a parcel with stamps from the North Pole and the children helped her open it to discover an Elf! He arrived with a story and after sharing it together the children learnt that the Elf will be finding hiding places around the forest. So far, he has appeared in the lower branches of trees having picked up a set of musical bells on the way, juggling oranges in the snack area and doing yoga in the tipi!
The children have also been interested in calendars this week and have been cutting pictures from old calendars as collage material to make their own. Bo also helped the children make their very own garland - they collected large plane tree leaves and threaded them onto wool and hung them from their snack area tarp! It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
We hope you all have had fantastic weeks and we hope you have restful weekends!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham