Our Week in the Forest...
Gone Fishing
With the strong winds finally leaving the forest, our Little Forest Folk-ers couldn't wait to get back to the forest and play. An exciting adventure walk in the morning gave children an opportunity to point out a large ball of jelly in a puddle. On closer inspection, the jelly was made up of lots of little balls with black dots...they had found frog spawn! The children arrived on-site and asked for nets so that they may return to the puddle on a rescue mission. So it was back out again with a group of children and their bright green nets waving in the air. Abbey watched as the children ever so carefully scooped up some of the spawn into their nets and carried them gently down the winding path that leads to the pond. There, children set about rehoming this nursery of sleeping eggs that seemed to be very happy in their new pond. The children are already planning their next visit to the pond to see if the eggs have hatched!
A theme started to emerge this week as Christie had a group of children request that they go fishing. It was not long before they were scouring the ground for the perfect sticks to serve as rods and with a lot of patience and practice, they each got to tie some string to their rod. At first, they approached the pond with excitement as they staked out their fishing position on the bank, with loud calls of "come sit next to me" and "I will catch a big fish and give it to my mum!".
Then a hush descended around the pond as one by one the children fell into a deep concentration as they squatted on the bank, intently watching the surface of the water for a sign that something might be nibbling their string.
While iPads, electronic toys and games offer a quick fix solution when it comes to distracting children's boredom, it is activities like this that activate and develop children's ability to concentrate and focus for a sustained amount of time. There is also a higher level of engagement as children lifted their rods, discovering they hadn't caught anything yet and so they returned to their pond stalking with a serious perseverance!
On-site the children have engaged really well with mark making activities this week - a sheet of paper and some creamy pastel pens gave children a wonderful opportunity to cover the paper in their designs. A spray bottle containing some forest safe green water was introduced to the creative process and they really enjoyed spraying their deigns and watching how the wet marks came to life and 'moved' across the paper and observed how the colours bleed into one another and changed colours. They also observed how their action had an immediate effect on the mediums they were using and one little boy said "look, my picture is melting!"
We hope you have a wonderful weekend. If you get time, why not try some fishing?
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon