Our Week in the Forest...
This week, along with the new dinosaurs continuing to be a huge hit, the children at Paradise enjoyed a day full of painting. This was the first week of our new Jaybird program, and when the other children saw how much fun they were having by creating their Jaybird sign, lots more wanted to join in! We covered the picnic tables in huge rolls of paper and let the children loose! Some chose to use paint brushes; others chose to use their hands while some children decided to use sticks or make their very own paint brushes using a straight stick and then some grass and leaves as the bristles.
The children experimented with these different methods, finding out which ones they preferred and which ones they didn’t. After deciding to completely cover their hands, we had some children who very quickly decided this wasn’t what they wanted to do and went off to wash them. Other children completely covered their hands and would have covered arms, faces and legs had there not been educators on hand to advise that might not be the best choice. Throughout everything we do, we want to give the children choice, and they loved the freedom to be able to experiment with the paints. The feeling of it oozing between their fingers, and the different thickness of lines or patterns they could make depending on their stick, the colour they chose to create; all choices the children were making, all little experiments that are laying the foundations to further this learning at a later stage.
All the excitement with the dinosaurs led us to conversations about dinosaur bones and fossils. This led to conversations about archaeologists and this of course led to the metal detector! The children were amazed as some secretly hidden coins were unearthed and some other things that we hadn’t hidden were also found. The children found old bottle tops, parts of cans, amongst lots of other things.
We also used the egg cartons that our boiled eggs for picnic lunch came in, to make masks. We cut them out and they made the perfect shape for two eyes and a beak. The children enjoyed flying, flapping and fluttering around the forest.
We’ve had a week full of creating and exploring and are hoping for more of the same next week. We hope you all have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth