This week we’ve had a new addition to our ever-expanding play park area. Miguel has made us a lovely see-saw – and the children were clamouring to try it out while he was still putting the finishing touches in place. With that and then the following day having five women advising him on how we would like our new wood shed and storage space to be built, Miguel doesn’t have an easy job – but we are very grateful for everything that he does!
On Saturday April 27thwe will have our first fundraising event of the year – a Spring Fair with fun games, food stalls, music, a cake competition and a Spring fairy and pixie procession. This week we had our first brainstorming session with children and we came up with a long list of games to choose from. Facilitators and children will get together at least once a week from now onwards to plan the event, giving them hands-on experience of what’s involved in planning an event. We are selecting games and stalls which the children are interested in getting involved with (such as a paper aeroplane competition!), so that it will be fun for them to run and host the games on the day, as well as being involved in the planning process and the creative process of making things that we need for the different games and stalls.
In Folha Verde Jardim the final 3 windows that we have been waiting for have now been put in – making this beautiful space lighter and cosier (thanks Rob and Joao).
This week in Jardim they have been making colourful paper chain decorations to put up on the land for the day of the Spring Fair as well as making and playing with play-doh, and hanging out in wheelbarrows (which became ships out at sea in their imaginations!).
In Oak and Chestnut there has been quite a maths focus this week.
In Oak they are planning to make their own board game – ‘the chocolate factory’.
Children of all ages got involved in making a model of a castle, complete with natural landscapes of trees, lakes, rivers, caves and mountains and a mini tipi.
A new game ‘addictaball’, which challenges children to find their way through the maze in the ball shaped toy by following the number sequences is proving a popular hit. Some also enjoyed putting their building skills into practice making towers from wooden blocks.
Children also enjoyed doing ‘co-operative mandalas’ with Ines – with each child starting by drawing the inner circle of the mandala, then passing it on to the person next to them to do the next design on the mandala.
We continued the process of making our ‘calm clock’ and also made a calming snow globe (made from biodegradabe glitter and water in a jar).
After the chilly starts when we arrive first thing in the morning, the days are starting to feel quite spring-like. We saw our first butterflies and one bee decided to come and hang out on Django’s sleeve for a while.
Some of the children set up camp in a mini-tipi and sat around together to make some earth and grass soup!
This Friday sees the first Community Agile Learning Day happening – a chance for people from the wider community to come together to share skills, knowledge, interests and crafts in the Folha Verde space. This will happen on Fridays once a month from now on. The days will run much like a Folha Verde day. In the morning, everyone gets together to plan out the day. If you want to offer an activity, you write your offering on a post-it note and stick it to the board in either the morning or afternoon slot. Anyone not offering a session can take part in any of the activities. It feels good that the space will start to be used as a centre of learning for the wider community.
