Plunging temperatures continue to change the scenery and the way that children have to adapt play to optimise fun in this colder and wetter environment. The children have been great at identifying when they are feeling cold or wet, for example, a sock may have dropped inside a boot, or a top may not be tucked in all the way around, gloves may need changing (as they so often do), or cuffs may need adjusting. It’s with this growing confidence in identifying issues and locations with a rich vocabulary and using excellent language skills to describe their feelings, that our Little Forest Folk-ers are able to have so much fun all day long!
One of the most brilliant changes though, is the colossal amounts of billowing dragon smoke everyone is able to create this time of year as warm air meets cold. Alongside a few foggy mornings, educators have been able to support children imagine and tell stories about dragons in the forest, which we bring into play by looking for them, running away from them, and digging away fervently for their large hard eggs.
Over on Green Team this week, children decided they wanted to create party invites and bags for their own party. They enjoyed drawing and colouring on paper with younger children interpreting their own marks as “please will you come to my party”, whilst older children did well to form recognisable letters from familiar names. Next, the children moved on to choosing what to fill their pretend party bags with, and educators observed some great discussions that used democracy and fairness to make sure everyone involved had chosen something they wanted to put inside.
Forest routines are important here, but this week children really enjoyed the opportunity of eating their morning snack out on an adventure walk. Dan likes to arrange the chopped fruit into sequential patterns to help children in the area of maths. In this game children need to find out what piece of fruit needs to come next in the line. For example, it may be two apple slices, two banana slices and then an orange segment, repeated twice but missing the last orange segment at the end. Children love playing this game, and everyone gets a turn throughout the week to be involved. This is a really easy game to play at home too that costs nothing and can make mealtimes fun, possibly helping to reintroduce fruit and vegetables that children may have disliked before or introducing new ones for a varied diet.
Red team minibus journeys have been full of song, inspired by occasionally having jolly back to back Christmas tunes on the radio. These songs have continued into camp and we’ve loved the extra cheer and joy as children have practiced and learnt new refrains. We have also been practicing a new log circle song this week which Matt has been adapting from a classic tune. Firstly, we begin by staying silent and tuning in to the sounds around us, and this week we heard birds, a train, and a wolf. This gives the children a moment to understand the power of their listening sense and ownership of creating their own song which gets sung to the Old Mcdonald rhyme and goes like this….
This forest sings a lovely song,
listen carefully,
and in the woods, I hear the birds,
listen carefully.
With a tweet tweet here,
and a tweet tweet there,
here a tweet, there a tweet,
everywhere a tweet tweet.
This forest sings a lovely song,
listen carefully,
and in the woods, I hear a train,
listen carefully.
With a choo choo here,
and a choo choo there,
here a choo, there a choo,
everywhere a choo choo.
This forest sings a lovely song,
listen carefully,
and in the woods, I hear a wolf,
listen carefully.
With an Awoooooo here,
and an Awoooooo there,
here an Awoooooo, there an Awoooooo
everywhere a Anwoooooooo
This forest sings a lovely song,
listen carefully.
You may even hear this at home soon and we would love for you to try it out too. It doesn’t even need to be sung outside as noises can be heard absolutely anywhere! We can’t wait to practice it in the forest again soon.
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth