Monday morning this week began with an exciting discovery of sheets of ice all over the tents and even before bags were off, children were experiencing all sorts of fun learning! Some children enjoyed the funny distorted views through the cold streaky panes, others trod gently or stamped hard to release a satisfying crunch underfoot, and everyone made some great observations using so many of their senses. It was also great to hear all of the children make astute comparisons to glass whilst relaying our Little Forest Folk rules about telling educators if they find glass in the forest. Some of this ice made for a wonderful new texture to add to mud kitchen recipes and potions, but as the sun poked round the clouds and it melted some children made their own links to evaporating puddles and rain clouds which was most impressive.
Ice, as we all now know, turns to water, and luckily the children on Green team designed and made their own boat from logs, to handle the rocking waves! Ingeniously children continued to have their own ideas on how to extend the narrative in their play by asking to use an empty orange fruit net “to catch fish”. Children gain so much independence and resilience when they are enabled to find their own ways to represent and develop their own ideas, so this was a truly wonderful moment to observe occurring.
There’s been even more water talk with maps and atlases being brought in to look at and study. Here, children have been fascinated about the differing details, letters, numbers, patterns, shapes, and colourings that help us all to get a real feel for the wonder that is planet earth. In these moments, educators have been able to support children’s growing understanding that people have many differences and similarities that connect us. These maps have influenced the way children have been creatively redesigning things from their own worlds, with tent pegs and wool. Here, we have observed imaginations in full flow with red trainlines to museums, and multi-coloured roads across oceans for example.
Humans all share the concept of time, and both teams now use stopwatches where possible within play, so children get to see numbers being used for a purpose. Over on the green team, the main purpose was to help children expand on their concepts of fair turn taking on an extremely exciting double-seater log swing! This has helped children to identify boundaries that consider the needs of friends, whilst giving educators the opportunity to support them to constructively tolerate delay and manage feelings around sharing. For the red team, some children have been making predictions about time, by counting out loud to get to a minute. This has been a fun way to introduce complicated numbers like those above 10, then above 20, and then onto the other multiples of 10.
We’ve all had a great week across our sites, and we’d like to let you know a little more about upcoming events. As the festive period edges closer, we are planning various fun activities for the children to do! The festive fun will be kicking off on Monday 14th December and will last all week!
We will be making cinnamon salt dough tree necklaces, carving potatoes for printing, biscuit decorating, as well as many more fun and festive activities including a festive disco dance and plenty of other arts and crafts! We are also hoping to hear from the man in red and white... FATHER CHRISTMAS! During the week commencing Monday 14th, please feel free to send your little ones in wearing fancy dress under their waterproofs! We would love to see all the Christmas fancy dress outfits and Christmas jumpers that you may have!
In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend. Ho Ho Ho!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth