The sound of laughter
There is no better sound than that of children laughing, and our forest is full of that amazing sound! Our children are always laughing and playing games with their friends and the amazing educators around them. They have the best time exploring all the different areas we have, having a chance to investigate the large variety of activity available, and using their imaginations to create amazing worlds of play.
This week has been full of incredible adventures and things to explore, as well the opportunities for our children to learn new skills.
Some of our children had a visit from the Mad Professor this week. One of our amazing practitioners dressed up in full costume, taking on a new character for the children to fall in love with. The Professor provided some great experiments for our children to observe and take part in, showing them how we can bring science into the forest. They used vinegar in a bottle and attached a balloon that had some bicarbonate of soda into the top of the bottle. Once the balloon was attached and the bicarbonate of soda fell in, it made the balloon blow up without being touched! The children were sat in awe of this amazing experiment, watching as the science took place before their eyes. They had a chance to join in and tip the balloon into the bottle with their friends encouraging them from the side. The children loved this time in the week and have asked for the Mad Professor to visit more. Watch this space!
Another exciting part of our week was introducing our new floor books to our Little Forest Folk-ers. These are large notebooks which our children can fill in and become the authors of. One of our books has started with the theme of Spring, and our children have some time in the afternoon to reflect on all of the signs of spring that they have noticed in the forest that day. They draw pictures, write words or just jot down whatever comes to mind.
The other floor book has different headings on each page such as, ‘What makes you happy?’, and ‘Can you draw something from the forest?’. The children then have the opportunity to do some mark making to fill in the answers to these questions. We have drawings of trees, bugs and muddy puddles, along with pictures of their family and friends. It’s a great way for the children to express their thoughts and feelings without words. This is something that we really focus on in the forest; allowing the children to express themselves in whichever way they find most comfortable and showing them it’s okay to show their emotions by working together to find the best way that suits them.
Our children at Wimbledon are constantly finding new ways to use the forest around them. They use the large sticks to build dens, they turn our climbing trees into spaceships to head off on missions to Mars, and they use the different areas as racetracks for them to be cars or planes or “fast cats”. It’s inspiring to see how minds so young can create such amazing imaginative worlds. They allow others to become a part of their world and show us educators how to be a child again. In the world that we are living in, it’s a joy to watch these children be happy and creative every day. They show us how to laugh, enjoy the forest and lose yourself in the incredible world of imagination!
We hope you too have had a lovely week and we hope you all have wonderful weekends!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon