Sunshine and rainbows
This week the sun has brought some spring joy to the forest. We have been welcomed by blue skies and bright sunshine, with the occasional small rain shower bringing an amazing rainbow with it. The weather has made everyone very happy and there have been so many exciting things happening in the forest...
We have had volcanoes, moon sand, nature crowns, whittling, and lots of stories as usual. There has been something of interest for every child, making their day in the forest even more exciting!
The volcano experiment was a huge success! The children all gathered round as the different ingredients were laid out in front of them, with each one being described and telling the children what it does to the volcano. We used washing up liquid, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda as the main ingredients and then the children could choose which colour of food colouring to add in. Everyone counted as the spoonfuls of bicarbonate of soda were added (the main ingredient for the “lava”). They all had a chance to guess what might happen when the ingredients were added and spoke about it with their friends. There was then a big countdown before the lava poured out of the volcano and flowed down the side! This experiment then led to lots of conversations and games afterwards based around volcanoes and the children being explorers, treading through the hot lava to make sure they didn’t get burnt!
Another area that our children have been loving this week is stories. Many older stories have had a revival recently, including The Lion King and Winnie the Pooh. We have had spoken stories from our educators where they let the children choose which character they would like to be from the story, and they act it out as it’s being told. These have then led to other games where the children have used the different parts of the forest as areas from the Lion King story, and each child has had a character to play. The Winnie the Pooh story had all the different characters printed out for the children to look at while the story was being read, and then they could use them for their own story. Introducing the children to the different characters has meant they have had new ideas to bring into their own play, expanding their imaginative play even more.
Our forest school skills have been on show as well with some of our children whittling. Everyone chose their own sticks to whittle and sat as they listened to the educator explain exactly what they had to do. They carefully used the peelers to take the layers of bark off the twigs and sticks that they found. The children had to really listen to the instructions and focus on the activity to make sure it was done the way they wanted. Our Little Forest Folk-ers have a real interest in making things and having a physical object to show at the end of the day. It is lovely as they can show the item to their friends and family and they are proud of what they have made.
With a huge amount of activity available for our children to enjoy and take part in, every day in the forest has offered something new for our children.
Spring is on the way and being in the forest this week has been a lovely way to spend the amazing start to the sunny weather! We hope you all have wonderful weekends!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon