Our Week in the Forest...
A touch of magic has descended on Wimbledon Common this week, with interests turning to creating fairies and fairy houses made from willow. The theme has extended to our windy adventure walks on which the children have created wind wands to scientifically examine the direction and power of the wind.
We started the week with very different weather compared to the last two weeks and as a result, our conditions were very wet and muddy. Naturally this was gold dust for the children who endlessly splashed through the puddles. Two children however were experimenting with how the mud splattered on different objects. Responding to the interest, a giant sheet, wooden planks and paper were provided and the children tested the “stickability” of the mud. We found out that the mud made the paper wet and break, the mud slid down the sheet and it stuck very well to the wood. From here, the children continued on their exploratory voyage, using the back side of gardening trowels the children plastered the whole of the sheet in the mud making sure not to miss any marks. “We have to cover it all, so then we can paint on it”, they exclaimed. Relating the activity to an experience of house renovations that they have experienced and watched.
As ever we have had a very innovative week in the forest this week. The educators have sourced and brought in lovely branches of Willow which is extremely malleable whilst still strong. When questioned what they would like to build, the highest voted answer was a house. So, bending and balancing the children created a lovely house. “It’s a house for a fairy” a keen builder told us. “Let’s make some fairies” returned another. So, with support the children then continued to create little forest fairies, and butterfly wings by bending and twisting their wood. This was a real test of the children’s fine motor skills and again encouraged the children to shape their work around the interest of others and using communicative team work.
Windy days are always exciting and we started looking at the movement of the wind using bubbles. “It’s going that way” … “Wait no, it’s swirling over there!”, “Why is it doing that?”. This invigorated our children to find out more, so using their fine motor skills the children tied pieces of ribbon to the end of sticks. Amongst themselves the children chose to stand in different places on the hill, shouting to each other which way their ribbons were blowing. “Hold on, mine in blowing that way. Maybe it’s because of the tree?” remarked one, realising that wind does not just move in one direction but moves in different ways when encountering different terrain.
Finally, there has been a bloom of fungi and mushrooms in the forest. The children have been expert spotters and have helped the educators to find King Alfred’s which are perfect fire starters but the favourite of the week was the jelly ears mushrooms!
Have an absolutely lovely weekend everybody, see you next week!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth