Educators were greeted with a flurry of fabulous snowy stories on Monday morning, as children shared their own experiences from the day before. The excitement of last Sunday’s heavy snowfall continued immediately as all the children spied that the bowling greens were still glistening with untouched deep white snow. Observations were soon made about how the textures and feel of the surface underfoot and in hand was a bit different to their previous experience. They recognised that the snow was much icier and harder to manipulate but with some support the children found ways to dig up the snow and have plenty of fun with all day long. Children invested excellent fine motor skills into creating volcanoes and igloos and used great imaginations to use the various textures of snow as ingredients like icing for cakes.
We also all had a great opportunity to study a variety of bird footprints from wagtails to crows, and Red Team even identified fox tracks that several children followed along one side of the field. The best part of the day, however, was almost likely some awesome sledge pulling by Simon, that all the children had an opportunity to do. The laughter as they wizzed, teetered and toppled was testament to this!
This week in the forest, Green Team extended their understanding about the snowy footprints by using bird identifying books out on adventure walks to see what feathered friends they could spot. Wagtails were witnessed on the grassier flats and a woodpecker was heard in the distance, but they are exceptionally hard to spot. The children are all hoping to see one soon though as they especially loved their bold colours in the book. Books helped out again later in the week, when a flag making activity was set up. Here, children were enabled to understand how a variety of colours and shapes help to represent groups of people which helped them navigate around designing their very own. Everyone made great use of the fun felt shapes that were introduced for the activity and some lovely conversations were had throughout the creative process.
Educators have been steadily increasing their portfolio of portable resources, and this week saw an introduction of picture cards. These have been a great way to practice new words and strengthen the sounding of others for the younger children, but they have also spring-boarded some excellent group conversations. A picture as simple as one teddy bear for example, enables an opportunity for everybody to contribute to a chat about their fluffy friends, with educators just as easily being able to talk about their own toys from many years ago! Here, we can support the children to develop great listening skills which helps them to focus on the details that make everybody’s lives different from one another. Similarly, in these groups we can all learn new descriptive words from each other to help us construct more fluid sentences to paint our thoughts into words.
The week has ended with some lovely bursts of sunshine and we hope your weekend is bestowed with some sunshine too. See you all next week for more adventures!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth