Our Week in the Forest
This week we have welcomed a new Little Forest Folk-er, another heatwave and many ways to keep cool!
At Wimbledon, our hottest activities of the day are our walk into and out of the forest, due to the lack of tree canopy walking across the meadows, but we did not fret, as our amazing educators set up cooling activities to take part in from the get go! One sunny afternoon after lunch, we used some hand washing water to create a foot spa for our non sleepers! The children were welcomed with cold wet flannels, a picnic blanket and calming sensory brushes to play with. It had a truly tremendous effect on all those who participated. They took off their shoes and socks and perched down round the edge of our big tuff tray. Using flannels and paintbrushes, the water was swished around and squeezed on top of their feet.
Another cooling activity has been rescuing animals from their frozen fate! Using pipettes and little child-safe wooden hammers, the children broke down the ice to free the poor small-world creatures who had been trapped. This activity inspired many conversations about the three different states of matter, as the children identified the ice melting into a liquid and slowly disappearing (evaporating) into the hot environment once the sunlight shone through the canopy. Once the animals were all rescued, the children took them off to the construction zone where new habitats were built for them. They made sure there was enough shade by building towers that had gaps big enough for them, thus creating large shadows for when they were on the ground.
Finally, the wind picked up a bit this week which helped provide a cool breeze for our hot heads! Our little adventurers explored wind direction using a colourful windmill. They noticed the differences that occurred when they changed the position they held the windmill, direction it faced and the speed of wind. They then were able to identify which direction the wind was coming from by using a compass or the good old test of dropping a leaf! An excellent scientific experiment!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon