Our Week in the Forest...
This week the children have enjoyed having some of our parents join us for fun in the forest! Scientific enquiries have been intertwined with some wonderful creative activities this week with the children experimenting, making and then using their creations either in role-play or to test out their ideas.
Following on from our listening walks through the woods, the children have become interested in the different sounds that the birds make. Amy then supported the children to make their very own whistles to make their own bird calls. They cut elder to their desired length and then hollowed out the centre. One end was shaped into a mouth piece before a card reed was cut with scissors and stuck on. The children had to experiment with the reed and their technique to get their whistle to make a sound. After some perseverance, the children were delighted when their whistle made a bird call!
On one day this week, we brought the face paints out and the parents and children all got stuck in! The children decided what they wanted to be before being painted carefully by either a parent, educator or one of their friends. We had Captain underpants, the Incredible Hulk, superhero ninjas and an array of different animals. The children then spent much of the day role-playing in their chosen characters.
There was also lots of discussion around floating and sinking this week. The children spent hours concocting marvellous potions in our big purple tubs. They went off in search of different materials and mixed them in with water. They commented on how the rocks and mud sank and the leaves and twigs floated. As their mixture grew thicker and thicker with ingredients, they noticed that many ingredients that had previously floated were not stuck in suspension underneath the surface. This experiment was taken a step further when Morwenna supported the children to make their own boats complete with sails. The crafts were taken down to the river to test how well they took to the water!
It was lovely to see some moments of caring this week as the children actively went out of their way to help each other. They helped each other to get their coats on, held hands over tricky terrain and offered emotional support if a friend was upset.
We have also recently noticed that the plants in our garden have started to sprout so we are super excited to see what they will look like next week!
We hope you all have a wonderful long weekend and will see our families from Tuesday onwards for lots of forest fun!
Little Forest Folk
Barnes