This week was all about sensory explorations and connecting with the cultural celebrations of Lunar New Year in many ways. This included through food as we discussed rice, noodles and the utensils we might use to cook, serve and eat these ingredients. Every day we had a different opportunity to sift, sort and sweep grains or pull, squish and load up noodles into bowls and cups, allowing our little adventurers to not only problem solve and find the best utensil or vessel for the job, but also experiment with making marks, either by dragging lines into the materials, or dipping them in paint to create a tool for drawing and making their mark.
We scaled up our mark making too, by copying the sweeping gestures of Chinese symbols and creating huge brush strokes with paint on clear tarpaulin hanging between the trees. Towards the end of the week, we used bold and fiery colours to create decorations - shooting stars with threaded woollen trails and paper lanterns like the ones that might be used to send out the old year of the dragon and welcome in the year of the snake.
Snakes and dragons obviously played a big part in our learning this week but so did other reptiles, namely: Sheldon! Sheldon is educator Sam’s red-footed tortoise who came to visit the children last Friday while we took shelter from the storm at the indoor space. He brought with him a sense of calm and slowness that the children embraced, with many keen just to stop and observe him for a long time while he ate his salad for lunch! They showed a great deal of care and mindfulness of this wonderful creature and echoed his choices of cucumber, banana and apple for afternoon snack, which they cut themselves (along with some extra morsels for Sheldon).
We have loved investigating alongside our Little Forest Folk-ers this week as we explored all things Lunar New Year and the many learning opportunities it inspired. We wish our families a wonderful weekend and good health and fortune in the year ahead!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon Village