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.
Read morePlanting Sunflowers for Mother’s Day
We’ve had a really good week on Forest School and luckily we haven’t had to put waterproofs on every day of the week due to warmer/dryer weather. Hooray! So this week we headed round to the big barn to have our snack, this week all the children have been trying different types of fruit, including Physalis and Cucumber.
Read moreWater Exploration
Hello, I hope you have all had a lovely week enjoying the mixture of spring and winter! We sure have had lots of fun, splashing in puddles and exploring our surroundings.
Read moreLittle Climbers
Hello and welcome to my first Forest School blog! Recently Lou from the Warren has been planning and evaluating our sessions but the time has come for me to take over and see what our little burrowers can do.
Read moreNew Year, New Children
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a very happy new year, it’s lovely to hear all about the presents that the children have been given from Father Christmas! It also seems that all you parents had a lovely time also, minus anyone that has told me you have been poorly over the holidays.
Read moreSand Galore!!
For three weeks now in the Burrow’s planning we have had out the sand in our tuff spot, when I first placed this inside I never knew it would be so popular with the children.
Read moreCutting with Scissors
This week’s group activity in the Burrow has been using scissors, the learning intention was to: learn how to hold our scissors and how to hold the paper. Some children’s concentration was really pushed to the limit whereas,
Read moreChanging seasons at Free Rangers
As the leaves start falling from the tree and the evenings are beginning to get colder I think we can finally say that we are seeing signs of autumn, you might find that instead of grabbing a t-shirt from the wardrobe it may be a jumper!
Read moreThe Burrowers routine
In childcare it is very important to have a good routine that you will follow every day, this is to help the staff to know what’s next and it also helps to support the children, enabling them to feel safe in that they know what’s next and where they are within the day.
Read moreBoris and Sid
A few months ago we were given some books from a mum who was having a good sort out. There were two books that the children took a real shine to and they were "Calm Down Boris" and "You’re Not So Scary, Sid!"
Read moreHow we plan in the Burrow
In the Burrow we help to plan for your children’s interests and needs, whether they enjoy jumping into our ball pool or sitting down and reading a story. As one of our roles when working with children, we have to plan for every child as an individual.
Read moreGoodbye Butterflies
A couple of weeks ago Wilf arrived at Free Rangers with some caterpillars “They will turn into butterflies” he exclaimed! The Burrow explored the caterpillars, which openly lead to a discussion about their life cycle.
Read moreSunflowers
For Mother’s day this year all the children planted some sunflower seeds for their mummies. They placed all their soil into the little plant pot, carefully planted the seed in the middle and put some soil on top of it.
Read moreMusic to my ears
For the past five weeks, every Wednesday afternoon I have been travelling to Bristol to attend a music session in St Werburgh’s community centre near St Paul’s. The five sessions have consisted of;
- Singing
- Musical Instruments
- Structured and free flow sessions
- Music and the curriculum
- Music and emotion
Food Glorious Food!
Last week I asked a little boy where butter came from, “I don’t know” he responded. I told him that it came from a cow in which he responded “No, silly”. The idea then came to me that maybe we should do an activity on learning where our food comes from and how it doesn’t magically appear on a plate in the kitchen.
Read moreImagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
With that in mind, The Burrow practitioners have been focusing on the children's imaginations and really allowing them to follow and act out their thoughts.
During song box a little boy asked if we could sing "Wheels on the bus" which then made me think….. Let's go to Weston Super Mare on a bus!
So we set out the chairs into a 'bus' and I told the children we were off to the seaside! We all sat down and put our seat belts on ready for the long journey to the coast and then we were off! One child started to sing "Wheels on the bus" so I joined in the singing, which then encouraged other children. I used lots of different words and expression to encourage the children's emergent language. M then said "I see lots of clouds, it might rain."
We then arrived at the seaside and I asked the children what they normally do at the coast.
"I eat ice cream" W said, so that was it, off we went to the ice cream van where Nic was standing behind the gate! We all ordered chocolate ice cream followed by a splash in the sea and making sandcastles.
On Wednesday we had a mixture of younger and older children in so I gave the children an option of where to go. "Moon, Moon" W said. We counted down to ten and BLAST OFF we were flying through the clouds. I started to shake as we took off and H joined in who is not even two yet! When we landed on the moon I asked what we could see, "Aliens" J answered. So off we went, looking for them!
On both trips the children acted out and commented on the weather, the scenery and the customs relevant to them and their families, as well as developing concepts totally alien to them (excuse the pun!)
Our adventures to the seaside and moon, were initiated by the children and as practitioners we simply facilitated and modelled their learning. The children had the time to play and explore their lines of thought, which at their age is crucial in making sense of the world around them and embedding deep learning.
All we really needed were some chairs and our imaginations! So seeing as this wet weather is set to stay, I wonder where your imaginations will take you this weekend. I don't know about you, but I'm off to the sun!
Lauren
Blackberry Picking
We are very lucky at Free Rangers to be blessed with a cycle track in very close proximity that’s rich in bramble bushes full of large juicy blackberries.The children in the Burrow have had the chance to pick their own, and sample the trials and tribulations of foraging for these black jewels. Valarie our Food Resource Manager at Free Rangers mentioned about a blackberry jelly she intended to make in the kitchen, so we jumped at the chance to take our little fruit pickers along the cycle track to see what we could find. When we have snack in the Burrow, the children receive fruit in front of them on the table. How did this fruit get to them? Where did it come from? By allowing the children to be a part of the production of their food (our nursery garden is key to this also), it begins to teach them about the journey their food goes through to get it to their plates. The first task was to let 10 bouncing toddlers know what sort of adventure we were about to take, of course as soon as we mentioned it there was a rush of putting wellies on and getting our collection pots.
Once we were all ready I opened the gates to different setting to that of the nursery, however it didn’t look like any blackberries would be growing in the car park, so we all ventured into the farm where some were located. These weren’t immediately highlighted to the children, to see if they could spot any themselves. One little girl ran over to the first blackberry bush we discovered excitedly exclaiming: “I found a blackberry!” She understood straight away what we were looking for and showed she had understood what our adventure was all about. It was clear the discovery had made her happy and picked one straight away, however this blackberry didn’t manage to reach the cups it went straight into her mouth! Before all the children started picking the berries, we first had to explain some important rules about foraging. Could we pick green or red blackberries? We let the children know that only black berries were to be picked, as the green and red would be very yucky in our tummies! The children noticed the blackberries had sharp thorns and stinging nettles growing around them. A few of the older children knew the stinging nettles and brambles would hurt them, so they learnt to identify what they looked like so they could avoid harm. When we venture out of the nursery we always explain to the children about all the hazardous plants that we might encounter, for example Lords and Ladies.
When the children started to get stuck into picking the berries, they didn’t stop! We spent 45minutes along the cycle track picking all the blackberries we could reach. Spending this amount of time outside gave the children lots of exercise and fresh air, running back and forth from bush to bush without them even getting out of breath!
During our blackberry picking, there was lots of talk between the children. The main topic was children telling others that they can’t put green or red blackberries in their mouths. Many of these children put these back into the bush. Other conversations were about picking blackberries at home, it was nice to see the children are able to do this activity at nursery but it is a lot more satisfying knowing that this happens at home. The sharing was also great to see between the children, passing around the pots so we all have a hold without adults having to suggest it. We then spoke about how nutritious the blackberries are, especially because they are organic, full of vitamin C giving the children’s immune systems a good boost and containing plenty of fibre to help with their digestion. When we returned back to nursery, a child took the blackberries up to the kitchen ready to be included into our jelly!
All the children had a fantastic time whilst picking the berries and we eagerly look forward to our next outdoor adventure!
Thanks for reading!
Lauren