Spring is definitely springing! We like our children to value their senses and now is a great time to smell, see, hear and feel the awesome changes all around us. The opening buds create an alternative freshness to the deep damp leafiness of winter, and the green tops of flowers and wild plants are pushing through, such as the rafts of bluebells that will be appearing soon. This presents us the opportunity to talk about being wary of where we choose to place our feet, as not to damage fragile new shoots, which we are able to link into our “no shaking no breaking” and “no picking” rule. Naturally, we respect that picking flowers and foraging is a thing, and so where plants grow in abundance, we would let the children pick out a few green bits for play. An example of this is when on adventure walks this week, educators asked the children if they would like “sticky weeds” (cleavers) stuck to their lapels, and some children thought they were great decorations to sport and also “a bit like medals”; eco medals for epic amounts of walking up and down the steep banks of the forest!
This week eagle eyed children have spotted two magpies building a nest high up in the canopy above the Red Team log circle. These two feathered friends are the same magpies that often come to eat the leftovers after snack, so it has been great to link ideas about nourishment being an important part of daily routine for work, rest and play. This helps the children to plough through soups, understanding the idea that they might have more fun in the afternoon if they are re-energised with vitamins. The children enjoy being involved in these chats and love testing the educators about what exact vitamins are in every single food in the world, which gives us a lot of homework to do! Also, on the bird theme, Red Team were lucky to get to observe a crow plucking fur filaments from a hat. At first children thought it may have been a squirrel or a cat, so whilst Sam quickly reassured us it was a hat, we were able to have a quick chat about how some animals do eat other animals all around the world and that is how they get their energy to work, rest and play. It was the perfect moment to talk about the nest we have observed being built back at camp and all the children had some brilliant ideas about what else might make a nest warmer. This included leaves, newspaper, mud, cushions and blankys which were all excellent responses! We are so lucky to have such natural, real-life opportunities to springboard learning about anything and everything!
Both teams this week have loved an activity created by Katie, who enabled the environment for children to mix ground spices with water to create paint. Ginger, sumac, paprika and cinnamon were shown to the children who went on to pour water into palettes to create the mixes. Some children identified that they could smell “cookies” and “popcorn” too and observed the alternative granular texture to traditional paint. Consistencies were changed by adding their favourite ingredient…MUD! As this has been enjoyed so much, both teams added to the activity later in the week by introducing brushes made from twigs and parts of old plants and children happily painted away the morning, letting us know all about the “footprints’, “family” and “foods” that they had decided to paint. We observed some great experimentation too as children pondered “what would happen if I added stones” which is always excellent to see children leading on enhancing and informing their own play. Red team also continued to enjoy drawing with charcoal pieces, created last week when they found lots of burnt wood. Again, playing alongside nature and with nature is really rather special and the children love it, as do all the educators!
We hope you have a great weekend, and that the skies stay clear for you all. See you next week!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth