Our Week in the Forest
This week, to celebrate Earth Day on the 22nd, we have been exploring many activities around our planet. At the start of the week we looked at oceans, and we thoroughly enjoyed painting our own blue ocean onto paper. We were encouraged to create different lines for the waves as we painted, as well as discussing the sea creatures we would find in the ocean and if we have seen any in real life. This activity is perfect for our understanding of the world around us, as well as developing our large and fine motor skills through holding the paint brush and controlling the brush to create the lines and wiggles we desire. Another popular activity on our ocean day saw us create our own bamboo fishing rods. We had some long bamboo sticks which bent slightly at the top and worked together to stick some twine onto the rod, before enjoying lots of fishing role play! We enhanced our learning by talking about how to go fishing without harming any creatures and exploring the differences between different species of fish and where we can find them (in the sea, ponds or rivers).
One day we explored the nature around us and how we can protect our wildlife. We thought about what different natural resources we could find in the forest and how to use them within our play. For example, we have recently been given some tree branches with leaves which we have cut down. We spoke about different types of trees and identifying leaves. We then explored a fine manipulative activity of hole punching leaves then threading twine around them to create a natural necklace! We also enjoyed doing this with pine cones too, tangling the pine cone up in coloured wool and making it into a pendant. These types of activities support our fine motor skills and hand and eye coordination, which strengthens our hand muscles and supports our early pre-writing skills. We also had loads of mud, leaves, petals and water in our mud kitchen as well where we created mud soups, pies and cakes - perfect for our gross motor development and wrist rotation!
We also enjoyed throwing a birthday party for Karlenne as it was her birthday! We were all super excited to decorate the forest, wear our party hats and celebrate with her. We had some cardboard boxes which we painted as a birthday cake for her, developing our gross motor skills and colour recognition. We absolutely loved making party streamers too by using large sticks and waffle tissue paper. We cut the paper up and used masking tape to stick it on the end of our stick! Lastly, we had a makeshift stage using a wooden pallet which had lots of instruments on. We used this to then sing and dance, performing for each other.
Another fab week, have a great weekend everyone!
Little Forest Folk
Winkworth