This week the toddlers really have shown us how well and how long they can sit and concentrate on one activity, they have made us super proud and it’s so lovely to think we have helped make them who they are today!
We had the pleasure of having Lou from the Warren coming out on forest school with us which allows the children to do more advanced risk taking such as fire lighting, tool work etc.
When we started our session we asked the children our three forest school rules which are; we don’t run off without an adult, we don’t eat things off the floor and when we do fire lighting we never touch the fire. As we do more sessions the children are slowly remembering the rules which is really nice to see! After our rules we showed the children all the tools and materials we will need to light a fire, we did fire lighting 3 weeks back and Ed (who is 2 years and 2 months) knew what a fire steel was!! Of course it was a very proud moment for me as I clapped and told him how clever he was. This week I was very grateful to be able to run the forest school session all by myself and even lighting the fire, I am super excited to do my level 3 training in September so we can do exciting things like this all the time!
Whilst the fire was burning Ed had advised me to think of another activity to do, purely because we didn’t think the children would be able to sit for a long time. To our amazement they did, they were mesmerised by the fire and didn’t move one inch, you could also hear a pin drop due to how quiet and engaged they were. After the fire had turnt into burning coals we told the children what else we will be doing and this was….. MARSHMALLOWS!!!! The children seemed super excited to have marshmallows at nursery! They crawled on their knees to the fire, turning their kebab sticks over the fire. They then went and sat down, blew on the marshmallow due to it being very hot and ate them! A lot of children ate the marshmallow whole (my usual trick) whereas some licked or took tiny bites.
After our session we talked to the children about how we never leave the fire, we used the reasons; ‘because the babies might burn their hands’ and ‘an animal might hurt themselves’. The toddles watched as we poured the water over the coals causing a puff of smoke to leave the fire pit, ‘wow’ a few of them gasped.
This week has been such a lovely week and the weather was definitely on our side, however I think we should leave the fire activities to colder months as the last thing we wanted to do in 30c heat is hover over a fire! The children enjoyed it though and that is all that matters J
Enjoy the rest of the sunshine!
Lauren