Our Week in the Forest...
This week stories have been a major theme in the forest. The children always enjoy having a story read to them, and the stories Miranda told us during snack and lunch, on the bus or during adventure walks were in high demand all week. The children would sit around entranced, hanging on every word and helping out with the stories when asked. It’s not always easy to follow a story without pictures or props, especially for children as young as two, three and four, yet they remained captivated throughout.
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that telling children stories goes much further than just developing children’s literary skills. It can help to deal with, and make sense of real world situations; we want our children to be kind and sympathetic and by telling stories we can help them understand the feelings and emotions of others better, it improves concentration, inspires curiosity and kindles imagination – all traits that are hugely important throughout life.
It has been interesting to note how a slight change to the way our camp has been set up may have led to an environment that is even richer in communication than normal. Instead of being at the edge of camp, we tried moving our log circle into the centre. Much like the kitchen being the hub of the house, it has led to children gravitating towards this area more, choosing to do activities here where they can sit and watch other children playing, or where they can take longer to finish their snack or lunch, choosing to chat with friends while still not feeling left out of the action. This is where most of our stories have happened, along with joke telling.
The children have been subjected to some dreadful jokes from the educators but come up with some excellent jokes of their own. They have shown an ability to think critically and outside the box to understand why the jokes might have been funny, and even when the joke wasn’t understood or was completely nonsensical, the laughter from the rest of the children was enough to have everyone in stitches every time. In a cohort where currently, there is a slight imbalance towards 4 year olds, it creates an environment where our younger children are being exposed to an incredible amount of vocabulary and communication, enabling them to develop in this area so much quicker than if they were just with peers their own age.
Joke of the week by one of our children:
Why did the banana go to the doctor?
He wasn’t peeling very well…
Wishing you all a lovely sunny weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth