This week saw the creation of one of the best dinosaur dioramas we have ever seen, using entirely natural materials. We particularly enjoyed seeing how a team of around six children of all ages played so well together, communicating ideas, and sharing resources in a way that amplified fun and engagement for all. The Cretaceous scene began with a mountain of mud in the middle that soon needed a moat that was scraped, scoured and sieved away with various experimental motions and tools. The moat needed bridges, as they do, and naturally water had to be the finishing touch. Amongst themselves children decided who would collect the water, with someone operating the tap and others transporting the goods to pour. As the children observed the water gushing over the edges of the moat, they recognised they had to build a wall to seal their vision. After further careful construction, patting and moulding, the completed model contained the water which swirled below bridges to everyone’s delight, especially the dinosaurs that roared with glee and chomped at the grassy peak of the mountain; all in all, this was a perfect problem-solving bout of play! Well done!
On the same day we saw the formation of children in their wilderness element who initiated each other into being a “Thunder Sister” or a “Thunder Brother” by striping, circling, wiping mud on each other’s cheeks and foreheads. This seemed to activate quite awesome powers that saw children run as fast, shout as loud and jump as high as ever before; such is the simple power of mud! A few Educators were also lucky enough to be daubed in mud too and can concur it gives extra special powers! We then all had lots of fun swishing our hands through plenty of water in the tough tray to splash all the mud off.
The natural world around us continues to be used extensively and in the forest, children took on the challenge of joining start and end points several meters away using only twigs. For younger children this helped with sizing and sorting as consensus felt that “thinner” sticks were best for the job. The first line spanned about 12 meters across the site, from one tree, under the felled oak, to a stump. Here children’s imaginations were rich with ideas about how it was like a giant snake, or river, or a train track. As the “road” developed one child decided to draw houses along the way, whilst another started scraping away more railway tracks. At this point several other children also picked up similar sections of broken branch to push or drag train track lines all around the floor. It was great to see how one simple idea soon spanned the forest floor with children lending each other ideas and techniques to enhance play whilst a chorus of “Choo choos” filled the air!
Also, this week, tug of war play across the bubble boundary has been a big hit. Children loved cheering and chanting as they pulled at the heavy rope and have consequently asked to play every single day. Educators have loved it too and been pretending not to take the game seriously, but we imagine some will begin training for it in their spare time! This new daily event has been a great way to keep the teams together and we’ll definitely be able to extend play with a logbook so children can tally the scores. Games like these across the boundary will be one of the ways we help all the children to get to know each other and we look forward to letting you know about others soon.
We hope you have a great weekend. It certainly feels and looks like summer may be on its way back, so have lots of fun and we’ll see you all soon!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth