Epping Forest

Last week we went on a trip to Epping Forest. The weather wasn’t perfect, but at least it wasn’t raining. As an extension to our Forest School lessons we thought will be great to go to a real forest and we had chosen Epping Forest. It was a perfect place to recreate some of our favourite stories, such as The Gruffalo and We are Going on a Bear Hunt.
We had fun exploring this mystical and enchanted areas of the forest as apparently it is one of the most haunted forests and woods in the world. We found lots of mud and the sound of oozy mud was great.
We looked for minibeasts, birds, animal footprints. We looked at different plants, trees and we build a shelter ourselves. Look at our muddy wellies.

Forest School

It’s nearly end of another term. This half term was very excited as we started our Forest School sessions. We go twice a week in two groups of ten children and three adults to the local park. Our designated area is not really a forest, however does have trees, soil, bugs, logs and mud! So we can call it a Forest School!

The idea of Forest School is to encourage and inspire children and adults through an innovative, long term, educational approach to outdoor play and learning in a natural environment. Every week we do really exciting things, dressed in waterproof clothes and wellies. It’s interesting to observe children’s progress, as some of them were scared to sit on the ground at our first sessions! So many children don’t have access to green areas in London and providing them with that experience on daily basis is amazing!

Our sessions last two hours and so far we dug for bugs, hammered sticks into ground, observed birds through binoculars, built a shelter, built bird feeders and last time we did a marshmallows on the fire and we made medals by cutting a log with real saw! The possibilities with Forest School are endless!! I think that Forest School training is the most exciting training ever within an Early Years and hopefully I will be able to attend one very soon!

 

Early Years – Building an Igloo

OMG! that’s a task, we decided to build an igloo from milk bottles for children in the garden. I thought this will be an easy task as for the last three weeks we collected lots of bottles, but it’s not! I didn’t expect we will need soooo manyyy milk bottles!!

We started today and we only did three layers!

Task for tomorrow – to approach all the local cafes for milk bottles!!! I can’t wait to play in the ready igloo!!!

Some inspirational photos:

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There was also once an exhibition at Southbank from milk bottles by Gayle Chong Kwan, that’s an inspiration (made out of thousands milk bottles!).

Early Years – Arctic activities

As winter is here… no snow yet in London.. we are trying to offer activities, which will encourage children to think and talk about winter, arctic animals and snow!
Both at school and on Saturday’s sessions I try to find resources, which will help me create some winter scenes.

Messy activities are very good such as shaving foam, cornflour, ice or cotton wool and bubble wrap. Recently I also tried a new idea (taken from Pinterest!) mixing shaving foam and cornflour together and I was really amazed of the texture which came out. You can actually form some snow balls and like with cornflour – play with it for ages.

Another idea is to mix shaving foam with bicarbonate of soda and slowly add some vinegar. Look how your ‘snow’ is expanding!

Have fun creating your winter scenes and don’t forget to add winter stories!!!

Early Years – Mud kitchen

Finally a post about my favourite place at my new work – Mud Kitchen.
When I was little I always played with mud at my grandma at the country side every weekend. In the hen house I had my shop, where together with my cousins we were selling mud pies, mud cakes and many more! Great fun and great memory.

In our mud kitchen you can find lots of mud, water, fresh herbs and lots of natural things like concers, pine cones, leaves, sticks.
Last week we used lots of leaves, this week we were very busy as we opened an ‘ice cream’ shop and a ‘coffee’ shop with plenty of ‘hot chocolate’ as the last few days outside were very cold!
Now I’m planning to change pictures of real ice cream for mud ice cream and our mud hot chocolate cups with ‘frothed milk’ (bubbled water)…

Halloween Crafts

Halloween is just round the corner. Get your pumpkin ready and spend some time making simple arts and crafts with your child.
This Saturday we made ghosts and pumpkins using paper plates, some orange and yellow paint, glue and tissue paper. Simple and quick 🙂
Enjoy.

Halloween Crafts …

Lego Party

That was a party!!! My son just turned 10! Shocking, but true. With his great help we managed to make a Lego Themed party.

We had four stations:
– creative station for making your own Lego comic, making Lego name badge, Lego mask or creating own Lego Minifigure
– building station, where we had few games for creating a tallest tower, a car and other Lego creations
– game station, where we played Lego Bingo, Lego Creationary and Lego straw game
– food and drink station with lots of Lego food and a Lego Birthday cake
We had few games outside – Lego and spoon race and Lego Toss game – where children were throwing Lego pieces into different sizes rings to get some points.
We also had Lego decorations everywhere, Lego books displayed, Lego magazines in a bathroom, Lego soap (a piece of Lego inside a piece of soap) and lots of mini Lego prizes.

It was a lot of Lego everywhere!!

Early Years – Painting with leaves

Autumn is great! Full of free treasures for your child, from colourful leaves, to conkers, acorns, twigs and many more. There are plenty of activities you can do, from going on an Autumn’s walk, collecting all the free resources for painting, sticking, making collages and many more. Enjoy jumping in puddles and kicking leaves. Listen to the sounds as the water splashes and leaves scrunch underfoot.
Last time I used leaves to paint and explore the colours…

My favourite Autumn Song:

Autumn Leaves are Falling (tune to “Mary had a Little Lamb”)

Autumn leaves are falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
Autumn leaves are falling down,
Yellow, red and brown.

*

Find a broom and start to sweep,
Start to sweep, start to sweep,
Find a broom and start to sweep,
Yellow, red and brown.

*

And make them in a great big heap,
A great big heap, a great big heap,
And make them in a great big heap,
Yellow, red and brown.

*

But here comes the wind to blow them round,
Blow them round, blow them round,
Here comes the wind to blow them round,
and blow them all away.

Early Years – Story Boxes

 

Story Box is a great idea for a setting and for families at home. It’s simple, easy, cheap and very creative. It is a miniature setting based on a story you like. You just need a shoe box and some crafts to make a background relating to a story of your choice.
They are great to support children’s exploration of stories as they can retell the story themselves or make up new stories using the characters.

This is my first story box based on a story called “Smiley Shark” by Ruth Galloway. I love this story, it is simple,  funny and the smiley shark saves the day! In this story box you can actually pull the strings with characters so they can move (swim). I also added some natural objects such as shells stones and shiny paper.

I can’t wait to make more story boxes!

Some tips:
– shoe box is ideal, but you can use different boxes too
– cut down two of the vertical edges to create a flap on one side to open up the box
– decide on your theme
– cover the inside of the box with materials, tissue paper or felt
– collect objects or photocopy characters from the story

Involve children in making story boxes! It is so much fun doing it together!

 

Early Years: Little cookies

Today an easy activity and something you can actually eat after making it with your child.
It is a buttery shortbread recipe cutted into any shapes your child likes and it can be decorated after.

You will need:
– 150g plain flour
– 3 tablespoons rice flour
– 100g butter
– few drops of food colouring
– up to you if you want to add sugar (50g) or just drizzle of honey

What to do:
– help your child to lay a sheet of baking paper into a tray
– let your child mix the flours, honey with their hands; then to add butter in one or two big lumps and let your child work it into the dry ingredients with their fingers, squishing and kneading it into a soft dough
– help your child to add the food colouring and squish the dough
– help your child press out the dough with the ball of their hand until it is about 5mm thick
– use a floured cutters so your child can cut out the shapes and place them on the baking sheet
– let your child brush the shapes with a little egg
– bake for 10 minutes or until golden around the edges

Have a nice time!