This week our Burrow children have enjoyed making and sailing their own boats! On our forest school activity this week, we have taken out smaller groups of children to the big barn to have our snack (and fend off any greedy chickens who want to join us!) We have then made our boats which the children have helped us to do. This has been an adult-led process as the boats were a little tricky to construct independently, however they have evolved over the week anyway as we have found out the best way to make them and the children have helped in this process.
To make the boats we used:
- Tinfoil trays and lids (takeaway containers) – for the main part of the boat
- Long wooden skewers
- Blue tack or clay to hold everything together!
- Baking paper to make the sails
Once the boats were made, by pushing the skewers through the lid of the tinfoil tray and securing with clay, we cut out sails and pushed them onto the wooden skewer. This simple process gave us something that resembled boats and we set off for the pond.
The pond is a bit of a walk for our Burrowers and on the way we talked about the story “We’re going on a bear hunt” as this has been popular lately. We took the opportunity to use the sounds from the bear hunt to make the walk more interesting such as making our way through the long, wavy grass “Swishy Swashy, Swishy Swashy” and stomping through the mud “Squelch Squerch, Squelch Squerch” and this made our walk a bit more fun!
When we got to the pond the Burrow children had to use their listening skills to make sure that they followed adult instructions and stayed safe at the pond. They had to go and sit on the bench, one at a time and then once everyone was there we called the children one-by-one to lie on their tummies so they could look at the pond and the boats without peering over the edge and losing balance. Ponds and two-year olds can be a tricky business so we don’t like to take any risks where the pond is concerned! Once they all had a good view a member of staff put the boats into the pond and we watched them as they floated on the surface on the pond. A lot of learning took place with the children beginning to understand that light objects can float and watching the wind blow the sails to move them across the pond. The children really enjoyed watching the process of seeing something they had a role in making. Being near the pond, an area which we do not always have the opportunity to go to was also lots of fun and we all enjoyed seeing some winter wildlife as a very friendly robin came to visit us and kindly gave our Burrowers a good chance to see it up close.
I must say thanks to Lou from the Warren for planning this week’s activity!
What a lovely week in the Burrow!
Chynna