Ocean Adventure!

We have got a bit of a fishy theme going on at the moment and to extend the children's playI thought I would make them an ocean world in our black tray.  I had been lucky enough to pick up some blue vinyl flooring at the Materials Bank a few weeks back, which once cut to size, with its dark blue, grey and glittery bits, made a perfect ocean floor  (A piece of laminated blue paper would work just as well).

I then added a couple of the large rocks I brought back from holiday (which also helped to weigh down the vinyl and stop it floating to the top), the small world sea creatures, some shells and made some plants. 

 

These were simply pieces of green plastic (a green carrier bag would also work), wrapped around small stones and fastened with elastic bands.  I then cut the top part of the plastic to look like the leaves of plants. 

These were great because the 'leaves' moved around in the water, giving a realistic quality to play and also the creatures could 'hide' or 'play' amongst them. 

I set the tray up on a blue piece of material and added some larger shells and books to make the area more interesting and to give some ideas for play.

Oh and I forgot, we added water of course!
The children have certainly enjoyed playing in this area last week.  We've made up stories as we've played, talked about the fish that can breathe under water and the mammals that can't, practised naming the fish and had a good look at all the shells. 

I did think twice about doing this activity as I look after one little boy who loves to splash in any water and too be honest, I didn't relish the idea of having a flooded dining room. But much to my surprise, he has not splashed once!   I don't know whether this is because he hasn't experienced water in this context before, or because he has been too engaged in exploring the tray so think about splashing.  I wonder if this will last next week!
This week we hope to extend play by creating our own fish to add to the blue material, visiting the beach and pet shop to see some fish, and possibly making some boats to add to our underwater tray.  We may even have a go at the oat starfish that looked fab on the Its Playtime link-up!
Links to EYFS:
KUW: Place (Enjoy playing with small world equipment / show an interest in the world in which they live
CD: Developing Imagination and Imaginative Play (Making up stories to accompany play)

Outdoor Creative Kitchen Role-play

As last week was such a lovely week, we took our role-play kitchen outside.  Being outdoors meant we could be as messy as we liked so we added some extras to our kitchen.  These included extra bowls and spoons and a variety of ingredients (coffee, food colouring, salt, flour, water, rice krispies, baking powder, vinegar, cornflour, lavender, chives, hair gel, toothpaste, shaving foam).  The children got to work straight away and were engaged in the activity for the majority of the morning.
The assorted containers provided opportunities to develop our hand and arm muscles,
shaking....

squeezing...

...pouring

and stirring!

As well as coordinating the actions of both our hands.

The children made me some fantastic concoctions, lucky me!

 And once I was full up they moved on to other unsuspecting victims!!

But don't worry, we cleaned dolly up afterwards!

One of us discovered that the greater the force used to drop dolly into the bath, the bigger the splash!!

Links to EYFS:

CD: Developing Imagination and Imaginative Play - where children pretend they are cooking / making potions etc.

CD: Exploring Media and Materials - where children talk about and describe the texture of their mixture.

PD: Using Equipment and Materials - where children show good control over their use of equipment, for example when using spoons to scoop and mix.

PSRN: Numbers as Labels and for Counting - where children use numbers, for example, counting spoonfuls into their bowls.

CLL: Language for Communication - when children talk about and describe what they are doing.

Water Wall

Inspired by the water walls on my two current favourite blogs Play-based Learning and Teacher Tom ( http://www.playbasedlearning.com.au/2010/05/make-it-irresistible-with-a-water-wall/ and http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/water-wall-extension-and-home-made.html ) I decided to have a go at creating my own.  I didn't think my hubbie would go much on me drilling holes in the garden fence so enlisted his help in creating something that I could attach my water wall too.  He kindly made me four of these panels (total cost for all four, under £15 bargain!).
(picture to be added)
We used cable ties to attach various bottles and containers, some with holes made in them to create different effects with the water.  Eventually we ended up with this.

Then I just had to wait for the children to arrive after the bank holiday weekend.............
Okay so it wasn't an instant hit.  To be honest they all completely ignored it (I don't think they could work out what on earth it was).  Not wanting to 'force' them to play, I began to play with it myself which soon attracted their interest and so began over half an hour of continual exploration of the wall.  I used coloured water to enable the children to more easily see it as it travelled through the tubes and positioned a large tray at the bottom in a bid to catch the majority of the water so it could be recycled.

I purposely positioned some of the top containers out of the children's reach as it gave the opportunity to problem-solve as to how to reach them as well as practising their balancing skills!.  The central top container did need to be re-positioned slightly lower down though as this proved to be just to tricky to reach.

I also added bottle tops to several of the containers to give the children some control over the flow of the water.  These required pushing, pulling or twisting to open - plenty of practice for small motor development.

It's been very popular for the last 2 days.

Of course it couldn't compete with jumping in puddles though!

Possible links to EYFS:

CLL: Language for Thinking - Where children use talk to think things through / explain what they are doing / reflect on what has happened.

KUW: Exploration and Investigation - Where children show curiosity in how the water wall works / show curiosity or an understanding that the aspects of the wall control the flow of the water

Coloured Water!

It occured to me last week as I again found that wet tissue paper had stained my floor (must position something over it before hubbie spots it) that maybe I could use it to dye the water in the water tray.  So we tried this yesterday and bingo, pink water (and pink hands!). I put one sheet of tissue paper into the water, swished it around, squeezed it (hence the pink hands) and used a sieve to get out the little bits as it fell apart.  It didn't dye the children's hands thankfully, I was wondering how I was going to explain that one to the parents.  I'm not sure about clothes though, I'll let you know if I get any complaints!

It was such a success that we went for turquoise today (I will remember to wear gloves next time).

Notice the little boy is trying to fill the cylinder when it is upside down.  I had to stop the older children from telling him as I wanted him to discover this for himself, which he did.

I also tried dying the water with crepe paper, but unfortunately they must make it colour fast now.
Again thanks to tomsensori who was my inspiration for putting planks across the water table.  I usually position a table at the end, but this worked so much better.  The children did not have to move from where they were playing and made full use of them.  I'm on the look-out for something longer that I can put along the centre of the table now, preferrably with sides to contain the water.


As the children played, I noticed one little boy seemed fascinated with putting his hands under the water as the other children tipped up the containers.  I remembered I had some large plastic cups, so used a heated a screwdriver on the cooker and melted holes into them in various patterns.

Possible links to EYFS:

PSED: Making Relationships (where the children are working together)

CLL: Language for Communication (where younger children are using one or two words to convey messages or where older children are using intonation and rhythm to make meanings clear / are able to follow instructions)

CLL: Language for Thinking (if older children are talking about what they are doing / are using objects as symbols for other things)

PSRN: Shape, Spaces and Measures (if younger children are filling / emptying containers or if older children are ordering items by weight)

KUW: Exploration & Investigation (if younger children are focusing their enquires of particular features or processes)