Our Week in the Forest...
This week we have been wowed by the children’s ideas, confidence and growing ability to work in larger collaborative projects together.
On one day, the children set about working together to make their own sticky forest playdough. Tom provided them with salt, flour and water and they mixed the ingredients up. There was some fantastic teamwork as the children worked together, took turns and discussed what was happening as they made the dough. Soon the mixture had become quite wet and was not binding together well. This inspired some wonderful conversations as the children described it as “sticky”, “slimy”, “gooey”, “sloppy” and “yucky”! We then noticed that we had run out of flour! The children helped to make the mixture less sticky by adding leaves and dried grass. They were amazed to find that this did help and soon they were able to mould the dough into two different shapes using their hands.
Jungle walks have also been a feature this week as the children have explored the undergrowth on our way into the forest. They showed amazing balance, determination and teamwork as they helped each other over obstacles, down steep muddy banks and through thick ivy. Some of our Little Forest Folk-ers helped others by holding their hands over the trickiest bits. Others helped out by explaining the best route to go. They found the perfect natural den amongst some thick ivy that had grown all over a fallen tree. They found that there was room for everyone and immediately began to role-play families making a kitchen, bedroom and toilet!
The children are continuing to embrace music in the forest. They absolutely love playing different instruments and are beginning to form groups! They are showing incredible rhythm as they drum, strum and sing songs around the forest. Moreno has been bringing her ukulele for the children to play but also so that the children can learn new songs to sing with her! Some are even learning songs in other languages.
For our wonderful healthy eating class the children learnt all about different white foods. The children started by identifying the white foods amongst a tin of different coloured foods. They then explored the texture and discussed what it was and where it comes from. The educators then brought out some parsnips and the children each had a turn to feel it, smell it and see what it looks like on the inside as one of the nutritionists cut it open. The children were all eager to have a taste. As they did so the children were taught that like carrots, parsnips are root vegetables that grow underground. They were then introduced to another root vegetable as they took turns to pull turnips from a special board that illustrated how turnips are harvested. After that they got to go on a turnip hunt searching out hidden turnips around the room. To finish off the class the children looked at beansprouts, tasted them and even made their own Christmas cards using the beansprouts to decorate making icicles!
Little Forest Folk
Barnes