Our Week in the Forest
What a glorious spring week we have had! The insects are stirring, the birds are flying to and fro collecting twigs and sticks to build their nests and the children have had great fun helping to build a slack line between the trees.
A slack line is a wide, flat rope that looks like a ribbon and we tie it very tightly between the trees, at about 20-30cm off the ground. Then we tie a rope above the slack line as a hand rail to help the children balance as they wobble and walk along. The challenges to stay upright on the slack line are immense, but our Little Forest Folk-ers are determined. The larger the gap between the trees the longer the slack line and the more wobbly it is - this section the children call the tricky bit. We definitely have some future trapeze artists in the forest!
We’ve had a lot of letter recognition and name matching in the forest this week. We had the abc’s hidden in the sand on the tuff tray, we've had letters drawn in chalk dotted around the forest on logs and tree stumps, we have also cut out letters from cardboard and punched holes in the letters and then threaded bright colourful wool through the holes, strengthening our fine motor development. Our names have been hidden around the forest too.
One day we had a cardboard tool kit and with it we built a house out of cardboard using special tools that help us cut through the thick material, drills and screw drivers that help us connect the pieces of cardboard with nuts and bolts. The house had windows and doors and our little adventurers have loved playing homes, peeking through windows and welcoming visitors to their humble abode.
We have had great throwing games too, which have challenged our eye and hand coordination, as well as our arm strength. We had to aim our small bean bags at certain numbers written upon the tyres and then on another day we had to throw the bean bags through the porthole of a space rocket. We may need to work on our accuracy but we had a great time trying with our right and left hands to see which arm was stronger!
As usual we enjoyed painting, cutting, clay and sand play too. Thanks for coming to the forest, see you again next time!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham