Hello everyone!
Hope you are all well and enjoying the mild weather complete with the usual beautiful colours of this time of year.
Here’s a quick highlight of what our Little Forest Folk-ers have been up to this week… we’ve learnt lots and had so much fun!
In the UK this week we are all aware of the build-up to Remembrance Sunday. Whilst the topic is rather complex for early years children, part of all childcare settings is to uphold British values and discuss aspects of our shared culture and ideals. We talked with the children about what war means and why British soldiers fought to preserve the freedom and liberty we all enjoy today. It also gave an opportunity to discuss family links, for instance with some of the educators having memories of family members that had been involved in the first and second world war. Many of the children were fascinated by the idea of being a soldier and what it must be like. They acted this out to explore their ideas and used crates and wooden planks to build fighter planes and tanks!
Tranquillity was restored when the children got arty to create their own poppies using a variety of mediums. Some cut out an individual egg carton and painted it red with a black circle in the middle. Others had help from an educator to arrange the beautiful, coloured leaves found on the forest floor into an inventive poppy formation. We also gave them lots of opportunities to paint and draw poppies. One child asked to mix red and white paint to make a pink poppy. This led to a discussion of different types of poppies found throughout the world. We discovered that there were yellow and purple poppies too!
Dinosaurs have continued to stomp and roar around our Twickenham site this week. On one occasion the children collected sand in a wheelbarrow and emptying it into a tuff tray watched as the dinosaurs enjoyed their new home. After adding water to the mix, these mega creatures were seen splashing and waving their tails around in the squelchy mixture.
We have been getting active to keep warm using a football that mysteriously appeared in our forest setting. Putting out a line of crates for a goal, our children enjoyed trying to score and staff were impressed with their kicking ability. This provided a good opportunity to work on gross motor skills such as kicking and catching. This is the perfect time to get sporty and stay healthy through exercise!
As you may know, staff carry walkie talkies to communicate with each other and to ensure maximum levels of supervision over your little angels. These items are of constant fascination to the children. Similar interest in ICT equipment was observed when we introduced the voice recorders that became immensely popular. Unfortunately for the children we cannot allow them access to our walkie talkies so this week they made their own pretend ones out of cardboard instead. Educators gave assistance in drawing the different features on them and later watched as they imitated educators using them. In particular, many acted out counting the children present in the forest announcing, ‘8 children counted.’
Shaping and moulding the clay, our Forest Folk-ers have been exploring 3D Shapes this week. Educators introduced mathematical names such as ‘sphere’, ‘cube’ and ‘pyramid’ to them and encouraged them to make their own. This involved lots of squishing, patting and using fists and playdough tools. Lots of fun was had once we added water to make the clay super-squishy and squelchy. Nothing beats messy play in the forest!
Have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham