Our Week in the Forest
This week at Little Forest Folk Winkworth we’ve been bringing stories to life in the great outdoors. Our intent is that our Little Forest Folk-er’s under 2 use this opportunity to practice words in familiar stories and our children aged 3-4 extend their vocabulary.
Story time has taken us on a journey to meet the Gruffalo, The Hungry Caterpillar, Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs. Along the way we’ve had plenty of roleplay, small world setups and wonderful sensory exploration in the gorgeous sunshine!
One of our educators brought in some homemade wooden stands that, together with our spare guttering, has made a ball run for apples and water to flow down. With resourceful imaginations, these same stands, adorned with laurel branches, leaves and flowers, became the forest for the woodcutter to chop down as part of Little Red Riding Hood's story.
Playdough has featured heavily this week. It has been made into little caterpillars, with a challenge to count the number of balls that make up the length of the caterpillar and cinnamon buns to take to Grandmother’s house to help her feel better. All this play dough strengthens little hands and their fine motor skills whilst exploring some maths and new vocabulary along the way.
This week the children have also made lots of brilliant things linked to the stories. They have made their own Gruffalos by pushing purple pasta (prickles), orange carrots (eyes) and peas (warts) into a nice big lump of clay. They also learnt about the life cycle of a butterfly using chickpeas and pasta shapes stuck onto a paper plate to represent the various stages from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly!
Coloured, cooked spaghetti has become wriggly worms to enjoy and measure the length, cold tea has been poured and counted, caterpillars have been fed, leaves have had holes punched in for pipe cleaner caterpillars to be threaded through, rickety old grannies have been gobbled up by wolves and piggy houses have been painted and decorated. It really is incredible, what learning can be facilitated using these classic stories as a jumping off point.
We look forward to bringing more well-loved tales to life next week, until then, we hope you all enjoy the sunshine!
Little Forest Folk
Winkworth