Our Week in the Forest
What a fantastic week we have had here at Little Forest Folk Fulham. As our learning intention has been ‘Understanding the World’, this week has been full of scientific enquiry, investigation and deep dives into how things work 🌿☀️
We explored cause and effect and forces, with a focus on wind 💨 After our trial run of kite flying last week we were inspired to give it another shot. Last week, as there wasn’t much wind, kite flying was a bit of a challenge and we really had to build up momentum with some fast sprints. But there’s learning within failure! So it was a perfect opportunity to discuss the capabilities of wind and the effects of force. This week there were some strong gusts in the air, so we managed to enjoy the benefits of a windy day with some impressively high kite flying. We extended this wind investigation by then creating our own natural wind chimes. We went on a natural treasure hunt, to find objects we thought would make noise if they banged together in the wind. We discussed properties and gave the children a brief. “Let’s find objects that are hard, and big enough to be attached to twine, and possibly a few beautiful objects to make a stunning piece” Our adventurers did a marvellous job and our bucket was packed full of rocks, pine cones, bark and beautiful feathers for decorative effect. We then worked together to choose our favourite objects and constructed a natural wind chime full of forest gold.
This week we also explored occupations, particularly construction workers and doctors and nurses, our nursery favourites! We transformed camp into a hospital, with a dentist surgery and an X-Ray unit 🩻 Children explored the different parts of the body/skeleton and adopted lots of new vocabulary. We explored what X-Rays were and how they can be used by doctors to keep us healthy. We even created our very own X-Rays in an arts&crafts activity - our little adventurers used black paper and white paint to make body prints that looked just like real X-Rays.
This week we had plenty of open ended play with our loose parts. One of our favourite things to observe is the endless concepts children can conceive with repeated resources. We brought out pallets, old pipes, tires and planks of wood. Within half an hour of play and imaginative thinking, camp was home to a big monster truck/car construction. 🏗️ Some of our holiday campers even rethought a simple branch. Observing it was a wiggly winding branch, the pair of adventurers decided that of course, this was a slithering snake. But rather than a menacing, dangerous snake, we were told this snake was sleepy, and needed a bedroom fashioned so it could enjoy a good rest 🐍 The pair found a large wooden plank for the base of the bed, then hunted for an item to pop under the snake’s head for a more comfortable sleeping position. What a great display of the limitless possibilities of children’s imagination! 💭
We hope everyone has a fab weekend, and are wishing all the very best to our term time families heading off for the summer or onto new adventures!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham