This week the Wimbledon Village children took their explorations of emotions to the next level, following our current theme of utilising colours to express feelings. The forest was a rainbow of emotions in every way possible! Building blocks, soft toys and wooden tools in red, yellow, blue and green helped us to remember the ‘Zones of Regulation’ so that we could talk about them while we played and every day in circle time, we practised our happy, sad, angry and worried faces. We shared how we were feeling, why we felt that way and how we could help each other get back to the green zone. By the end of the week, our little explorers were so good at recognising their zones of regulation that they were ready for a mindful and technically challenging activity! They made woollen tassel keyrings to put on their bags by cutting lengths of coloured wool and wrapping them round and round one hand, counting out five rotations for each of the four colours. They clipped the finished items to their bags, so that each time they unzip, they are reminded of the mixture of emotions we all have.
We also made the most of some rainy weather in the first part of the week by making a huge water run together. Our Little Forest Folk-ers observed the forces of gravity, caught the running water as it went down the pipes, poured it into all sorts of containers of different shapes, sizes and capacities and used it to make potions and pies in the mud kitchen. It was fantastic to see the children working together, constructing, taking turns and finding imaginative ways to use the rainwater. Our little engineers are primed and ready for some more building and experimentation next week, so we will be sure to do a rain dance to make sure we have enough raw material to work with!
Have a wonderful weekend, we look forward to plenty more fun in the forest next week!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon Village