Our Week in the Forest...
We’ve had a lovely week full of lots of different activities and experiences. On Monday, the children enjoyed observing the most amazing double rainbow and this brought about lots of discussions of how rainbows are formed, why they have certain colours, why sometimes you can see one, why sometimes there are more and most importantly what might be at the end of it!
Fact the educators have learnt about rainbows – A rainbow arch is a 42-degree angle starting from the direction opposite from the sun.
The benches at Paradise always get turned upside down for the children to build with – they usually end up as pirate ships and on this occasion, it was no different. What was different was how the children used loose parts to create ‘planks’ to walk along. First of all, they had to find wood that was the right size; strong enough for them to walk on but light enough for them to move and carry. They then had to figure out how to balance the planks so they could walk out on them without instantly just falling. Some children discovered that by wedging the planks in the spaces between the slats of the bench this helped hold them in position while captives were forced to walk along them.
Fact that we learnt about pirates – The most well-known and feared pirate, Captain Blackbeard (who was a real person) was actually called Edward Teach.
The children also enjoyed creating a mandala. They were shown pictures of what mandalas look like before discussing how they could create one themselves. They then had to work together to decide on a shape and style before collecting the leaves that they thought would look best. By the end of the activity they had created a piece of art Andy Goldsworthy himself would have been proud of.
Fact that we learnt about mandalas – from Buddhism, the mandala is a symbolic picture of the universe.
Lastly, and the highlight of the week (for some of the educators anyway) was watching the physical feat that was ‘Taking on the Travellator’. On an adventure where the children decided on the direction at every fork in the road, we ended up at a short, very steep little hill. To the children this appeared much bigger and due to the gradient, the mud and the leaves proved a really challenge to scale. When at the top, children and educators were able to observe others trying to make it to the top (with a massive cheer every time someone managed it) before then sliding on our bottoms all the way down to the bottom. We then headed to the bowling club where we were all hosed down.
Fact that we learnt about travellators – travellators, escalators and moving walkways move approximately 0.3 to 0.6 feet per second.
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth