Our Week in the Forest
This week we have been helping our Little Forest Folk-ers follow simple instructions, grow their vocabulary, develop their communication skills and have conversations inspired by our growing repertoire of songs and rhymes, all whilst having fun in the forest!
We started the week with “5 Little Speckled Frogs!” The children adored playing with our little speckled frogs in a sensory slimy green chia seed swamp. Our little explorers loved scooping, pouring and even weighing the slippery slime, catching the tiny frogs in little pots and picking them and the ferns and stones up with tweezers and the critter catcher. We also had 5 colourful cardboard frogs, lily pad cushions and a tuff tray pond to jump into where it was nice and cool. We were particularly warmed to see and hear some of our older children sing the song and jump the frogs into the pond without any prompting from us!
After that it was all aboard for “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”. First, we made some colourful origami paper boats to see if they could float down our water slide, then we climbed on a big pallet boat singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, and practising our rowing. The children especially enjoyed crying “heave” as they pulled their oars. The boat soon evolved into The Good Ship Forest Folk - a pirate ship, then ultimately a ferry to take us all on a summer holiday to Greece and France! It was packed with all the essentials, decorations, frogs, flags and soup, of course!
Finally, we moved to “Zoom Zoom Zoom We’re Going to the Moon” and “5 Little Men in a Flying Saucer”. We turned to the skies as our ship became a rocket, complete with colourful rocket boosters and a crew of kids determined to explore new frontiers! There was even a fire in the fuselage, so obviously we all had to run around shouting ‘fire fire’, ‘call the engines’ and ‘pour on water’ to put it out. Once our little adventurers had zoom, zoom, zoomed to the moon they discovered 5 little aliens in a flying saucer had landed on some soft, grey moon dust. The children loved running it through their fingers, describing the strange new material and giving the astronauts and aliens their protective foil suits and helmets to prevent asphyxiation!
Painting the planets and making aliens out of forest-found materials rounded off a week full of fun, and a lot of children, families and educators with catchy tunes ringing round their heads!
Little Forest Folk
Winkworth