Our Week in the Forest...
Whilst our little forest voices may not be classically trained, they are certainly enthusiastic! We love having a good old sing song at circle time and with our growing team it has been brilliant fun to expand our repertoire. Singing is always a super way to help children learn number skills- such as number order, addition and subtraction. We have a few songs that are great for this, such as the song about the monkeys swinging in the tree, who, one by one, come to a sticky end after teasing Mr. Crocodile. This is great for helping them work out 'one less', as Mr. Crocodile gets a taste for them! The children think it is hilarious, and love to try and help the grown-ups work out how many pesky monkeys are left. We also have a song where we hide a little stick in one of our hands. The children have to try and guess which one it is in and then we do a tally system - singer versus children. They love to count how many points they have working on their 'one more' skills, whilst also challenging children who love to count with trying to find the difference between the scores. Songs are a great way of helping children to develop rhythm, alongside encouraging them to have fun thinking up new ideas for us to include in our songs to make them their own. It's terrific having so many languages in our team so that we can have songs from other cultures. The children are amazing at learning the new words, whereas us adults seem to be singing about burritos instead of hands. Now with Cristina joining us from Romania we are eager to broaden our collection even further, along with increasing our terrible accents. Feel free to petition us for an album. I'm sure we could get one out in time for your Christmas stockings :-D
Over at our Windmill site that infamous forest hit 'What shall we do with the naughty pirate?' made a shock come back, after reading all about 'The Pirate Cruncher'. The children delighted in thinking of devious punishments to give the rascal character in the song, ranging from 'Feed him to the turtles!' to the sinister, 'Make him climb a tree!' We would not like to be in his boat. Once the children were all fired up they were eager for a swashbuckling adventure of their own, and who are we to deny our little forest folk. Off we set on the hunt for pirates and treasure. They certainly did find gold, in the form of the lovely autumnal leaves in a beautiful Winter's Sun. They had a glorious time rolling in the leaves, throwing them up and letting them fall, and gathering them all up into piles. But the highlight for everyone was jumping in the enormous puddles they discovered. A safer drop off from walking the plank, but just as wet a result. With mud dripping from their merry faces they were eager for a feast and probably ate more snack than ever before on their return to base camp. It was a two-hour trek after all! We love the fact that our kids don't complain about the prospect of a walk, but actively ask to go on one! They love seeking out new things, making discoveries and the thrill of the unknown. Let's hope that will never leave them.
Have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth