Our Week in the Forest...
Hurray! We made it through the eerie yellow and red skies on Monday to enjoy the rain, mud and puddles which followed this week!
In Paradise, the children spent much of their time perched up in the climbing tree which they announced was their ‘train going to London!’ This encouraged lots of collaborative and imaginative play with children taking on the various roles of driver and inspector; ‘ticket? Ticket?! All aboard the train!’
It also encouraged the children to apply mathematical skills to develop their game. ‘I’ve got two tickets!’ said one passenger climbing on board and inviting a friend to join them. A two-year-old commuter in a hurry called to the inspector, ‘I need to buy my ticket!’ before dashing off and returning with three round wooden discs to present, announcing, ‘Here is the money!’. Regular public transport users will be pleased to hear that the Paradise service is extremely punctual and many a passenger missed their train as the conductor shouted, ‘There’s a later train coming! You can get the next one!’. It was great to hear the children using a variety of mathematical language to create a wonderful and imaginative game for everyone.
The children have really been developing their problem-solving skills at our Windmill site this week. One of our educators set up a new log with ropes to add an additional challenging element to our climbing tree. However, it wasn’t quite right, decided one of our three and a half year olds.
‘We need rope here!’ they informed an educator after trying it out. The educator dutifully brought over a load of rope and together they created a new and incredible climbing structure, with the child explaining how we needed to tie the ropes for it to be even better! A sort of pirate ship emerged and before we knew it everyone in the forest was eager to have a turn. The problem solving continued as the children had to negotiate the best way to climb up and which foot holds would help them to do so. They quickly realised that they also needed to take it in turns or swap positions with one another in order to be able to climb up and down. It was super to hear the communication between the children as they mastered their latest project.
Thank you for another lovely week in the forest! Have a terrific weekend everyone!
Have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth