This week at Little Forest Folk we have played in all of the weathers and enjoyed every breeze and drop of rain thrown at us. Children have been finding the large Sweet Chestnut leaves and waving them around through the flowing air like wings and kites. These leaves have also doubled up as wraps to fill with pretend food and even become serving plates too. Such was the case on Red team this week, when a head torch with a red beam was used to represent the glow of an oven. Here all the children in the group enjoyed preparing miniature portions of food to put in this oven. This included breaking up tiny sticks to make chips, crumbling a rotten branch to make roast potatoes, and tearing up leaves to make salad. The little oven had several dials made of stones for turning up the temperature and around the side were hotplates made from stripped fallen bark pieces. The delicious food that was created was enjoyed by some of the dinosaur models that the children felt were hungry, which was very kind and thoughtful.
Meanwhile, actual life-size food has been enjoyed out and about on adventure walks, with Green Team taking both morning and afternoon snacks out on various occasions in the morning and afternoon. Whilst routines at these ages are important, maximising great times out and about in our beautiful surroundings can’t be passed! These walks have been so much fun recently with muddy slides practically around every corner, where the children make climbing up hills and sliding down them look so easy. Miniature hand-made creations have also been made over on Green team with tiny beds being made for mice to sleep in, with their very own covers and pillows made from leaves and lichen.
The cooking theme continued across both teams with children building pretend fires using the many new sticks and branches the wind has gifted us with. Here, children used sorting and sensory skills to pick the ones they felt were the best to make the base of the fire and continued by adding textures of mud and leaves for more height. What has been great to see here, is the natural talk about being cautious, with the children looking out for each-others safety even in these imaginary play worlds. It is in these roleplay moments that Little Forest Folk educators can support children to think about safety in their everyday lives, by extending the conversations they know will help develop the children’s own ideas.
Counting games continued this week with much use being made of our new subitising game where children have to match dots to numbers. This week we’ve been cracking digits up to 5 and it’s been going so well we definitely need to make 6-10 then onwards and upwards to the twenties and beyond! This can easily be practiced at home with a dice and numbers up to 6 written down on anything like post-it notes, or card cut from cereal packets (you could even let your child use children’s scissors under supervision to cut these parts for all important fine motor strengthening). In these number games children have shown incredible patience waiting their turn and letting their friends get on with it, whilst joining in to help at appropriate times as required. It’s been great to hear the children cheer each other on as numbers are correctly identified; it’s these motivational moments that let us know we are all in this together!
We hope you’ve all had a good a week as your children and that the weekend is wonderful. See you all soon!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth