This week, April gently turned into May and the forest marked the occasion with warm rays of sun that filtered down through the emerald tree canopy and dappled golden light over the site.
We have been focusing on providing children with projects that they could return to, so they could fine tune skills, test different ideas or simply engage with the joy of the experience once more.
On Monday, the children discovered playdough that was presented with a range of natural resources such as flowers, leaves, pinecones, sticks of all lengths and weights as well as a collection of pebbles. Forest educators supported children as they explored the materials and began to experiment with ideas. Some made sculptures while others worked collaboratively to make a party complete with decorations to hang from trees - and party food!
Later in the week the children took this further with clay, this time learning a new skill of printing. Our Little Forest Folk-ers worked with educators to use natural resources to imprint designs onto their ball of clay and then used paint to print this design on paper.
We took mark-making to a larger scale this week too – a large sheet hung between trees and our little adventurers enjoyed the experience of working together to paint their designs onto it. This naturally provides children an opportunity to mark-make with even bigger movements than paper allows, which engages the whole body and allowed our little explorers to create a masterpiece that was bigger than themselves!
The next day the same painted sheet was laid on the floor and the children could add to it with another new skill - sewing! With extra-large darning needles and yarn in hand, our Little Forest Folk-ers got to practice the fine motor skills of pushing the needle either up or down through the fabric and pulling up the yarn until they felt a little tug that signalled the length of yarn had completed a stitch. This was by no means an easy skill and took a lot of concentration and perseverance.
Karlenne built a wooden volcano early in the week, complete with orange and red lava which set the scene perfectly for our dinosaur small world play that fuelled a world of imagination. As the week progressed the children wanted the volcano disassembled and then used the large wooden loose parts to build a 2D house. They laid out the boundaries for the hallway and living room and it was complete with a door that was very busy with visitors!
Towards the end of the week the children were given the ropes and parachute to make their own 3D den, fine tuning the skill of weaving rope through the parachute eyelets and winding the rope round trees and we even got to practice some knots. This also gave way to a lot of mathematical exploration as our little adventurers encountered problems when ropes were not long enough to reach the tree of their choice and had to rethink distance and measure in order to overcome their problem. The party theme raised its head again too as the new den became a disco and Kylie Minogue’s “Your Disco” allowed us to jump and dance our hearts out and truly celebrate the dawning of a new month
What a wonderful week it’s been, we’re wishing you all a lovely long and restful weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon Village