This week has been rather tropical compared to the last and everyone has made great use of the exceptionally deep, spectacularly wide and thoroughly long puddles! Fishing rods always make an appearance in this weather, and recently “sneaky sharks”, “wellyfish” and “goldfish” have been caught, announced with glee when a stick manages to hook up a leaf!
The wet weather changes the songs that the children decide to sing too, and the educators support with correct wording, intonation and pattern. Naturally, we are hearing rhymes like “Row row row your boat”, “It’s raining, it’s pouring”, “One, two, three, four, five once I caught a fish alive”, and “Rain, rain go away”. Nursery rhymes are a simple powerful tool that help to develop language, literacy, maths and simple concepts to support understanding of the wonders of our world and we’d absolutely recommend singing at home too.
The week began and ended with both teams having the opportunity to excavate dinosaurs from blocks of ice. Children happily persevered for great lengths of time at their work and playfully introduced some wonderful narratives about hatching ice eggs, cavemen and giving the dinosaurs icy baths. We also all learnt that salt helps to melt ice, and everyone discovered their own unique innovative ways to crack open the solid water! Later in the day we were able to use a Dinosaur Atlas book to help identify the creatures found earlier. Some lengthy names were masterfully mastered like Mamenchisaurus and everyone had fun listening to educators attempting the mouthful that is the Micropachycephalosaurus (which is especially challenging when read upside down!). Here, we were also able to observe that some dinosaurs shared similarities with creatures that grace our planet today and some wonderful comparisons were made about various features like feathers, nostrils and pigmentations.
On Wednesday morning one of the children asked if they could go for an adventure walk to the Sunny Hill and a trip out in the afternoon was enabled. The terrain was tougher than usual with sticky tricky mud that clung to boots…but nothing stops Little Forest Folk! Educators, as always, were on hand to pluck stuck children from these problematic puddles and everyone had hilarious fun even before they got to the destination. At the base of the hill, a hot chocolate pit stop was made to refuel the pistons. Next, facing a 30-degree incline, children impressively pushed themselves to get to the top, which we estimate to be about 40 meters. This was seriously slippery stuff, and we applaud all involved that got to the peak! Once there, children merrily ran, slid and skidded all the way down. Atypically, once is never enough, and the hill was defeated several times over.
We can’t wait to get going again next week, but in the meantime, relax and have fun at home. Have a great weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth