Welcome back after the Easter break, I hope you all had a lovely time off.
Last week on Forest School we used our surrounding environment with our new and old friends, seeing what we can see and searching for different adventures, such as looking for chickens, walking along different paths etc. It was very nice to spend time with our new friends and getting to know them, of course it was lovely to see our old friends also!
We focused on our gross motor skills, using all kinds of walking, running jumping etc. Also our social skills and communication were used, talking to our friends about what we see and maybe talking about what we see at home. Ellie tells me “I have a horsey at my house, he is called William”, Daniel tells me “I walk my doggy Murphy in the field with mummy”.
On a couple of days we decided to have a picnic in the field joining onto the car park, we had really nice weather so decided to make the most of it!
This week I thought that a climbing activity would be the best way to ease our new friends in, giving them a slight challenge but also the option to run around if they didn’t feel as confident. We headed to the fort to have some snack, but on a couple of days pre-school had beaten us there already, so we had the privilege of having snack around the fire pit in the paddock! After this we raced down to the assault course ready to see what was waiting for us!
Once we reached the assault course the first challenge was our mud hill, luckily now in the warmer weather and long grass it is a lot easier for our little legs to climb up! The younger children really impressed us all, showing us there strength and eagerness to reach the top! A few children stayed on the hill, JL enjoyed fishing with our rope telling me “I’m fishing for sting rays and jellyfish like daddy”, some children were being firemen and some children used the rope to abseil up and down!
Once the children had battled the mud hill they moved on to the assault course, challenging themselves and balancing really well! A few times I will look over and a few children were doing it all by themselves, of course I rushed over to support them although I had lots of confidence in them. At the start of the assault course there was a big surprise for us, a big ball pool!
The shoes were off and there were jumping toddlers all around the ball pool, whether it was only feet we could see or no children at all from hiding under all the balls! The children were very jolly and smiling away, and then I decided it looked to fun not to join in! When I got in the ball pool the children were ecstatic, jumping on me or throwing balls at me (oh to be a child again!).
This week has definitely been challenging enough for our toddlers, and with the lovely weather we have managed to stay out longer!
Here Noah is using the rope to climb up and down the mud hill, he really has great enthusiasm and determination. He climbs up and down about 10 times in our session and as you can tell by the video, he must have been very tired by the end!
Lauren