This week in Forest School has been a little more exciting than normal, we have been able to use Loppers! Lou (from the Warren) did our planning this week and thought it would be a really good idea to test the children’s gross motor skills using their strength and grip!
Once we had snack we walked to our designated area where we had saucepans, spoons and water set up. During the week we linked our Forest School into our story making, making porridge and talking about the three bears. We had one problem though and this was that we had no spoons, so in comes the loppers to help us cut some spoons from sticks!
There was a big, free space in the bear’s kitchen in which we thought would be a very safe place to use our loppers. Before we used our equipment we spoke to the children about what might happen around the loppers, I would ask “Should I put my fingers near the blade?” and the children would shout “NO!”. We also spoke about not swinging them around as this may hurt our friends or ourselves, which we decided would not be a good idea!
After this it was time to get going, one by one the children came to kneel down with an adult. We ensured the children held the loppers the correct way, we then led a stick down in front of us and guided the children to grip the stick in the jaws. SNAP! The children used lots of strength and force to cut the stick, “yay” some children said once they had cut the wood! A little boy who is just two said “more, more wood” and went to find more things to cut.
Once we had cut the wood we started to make some porridge for the three bears who were currently on a walk, stirring and mixing all our ingredients together. We spoke about measurements, hot/cold and the sizes of the saucepans (big, middle sized and tiny).
During the week the children showed so much enthusiasm when using the loppers, it really gave them satisfaction and pride!
Lauren