Author: Sam
ANIMAL PLAY MAT & ACTIVITY
Making simple play mats is a useful way to use up all your odd size felt bits. I have a number of mats that I’ve made for different play scenes that I bring out during the year.
The children love to get creative with the different textures provided and often end up creating their whole own unique environments for their animals!
If you have animal counters a great activity is to find similar animal silhouettes to make a template sheet and let the children match up the animals.
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FUN HAMMERING ACTIVITY
Every now and then someone passes on a nice chunky piece of polystyrene packaging to us. All we do is add some children’s hammers and golfing T’s and create a fantastic hammering activity for the children to enjoy. They spend ages enjoying the satisfying feeling of hammering their “nails” into the “wood”.
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FUN WINTER ART
As the last few days before holidays have been steadily getting colder we have spent time exploring all things cold and Wintery! It has also provided some fun art opportunities that the children have had great fun making!
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WINTER PLAY PROVOCATION
We are in our last week of term before our mid year holiday – the days are definitely colder and we have had a lot of discussion time around Winter in different parts of the world. For some fun in our last week of term we made a huge winter wonderland that the children can play with – plenty of items to sort, count, re-arrange, play with and discuss!
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FUN FATHERS DAY CRAFTS!
We had so much fun this father’s day! After a long weekend we had 3 days to get stuck in and make a few things for the special dads in our life! The children were so proud of all their wonderful crafts and were just beaming when Friday came and it was time to take everything home!
What we made: gold nuts and bolts frame, best dad trophy and a special monkey print card. All were super simple achievable crafts that the children really enjoyed making. The only things I really had to complete for them was the gold spray paint to the frames and the detail to the monkeys. (Super cute Monkey card idea was from: http://www.craftymorning.com/fingerprint-monkey-card-idea-love-hangin/ )
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FREE INSECT RESOURCES
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ANIMAL PLAY PROVOCATION
With the wet weather set in we have been busy at creating various play provocations and small worlds for the children to explore and create. It’s been a good opportunity for us to discuss and learn about some less familiar animals – and great fun! The children have had lots of questions and spent ages playing with the different set ups.
Along with a ton of different puppets, puzzles and animal books to pore over…
Each day we have added a new small world to explore…
Plenty of opportunity to play, sort, discuss and create!
And of course lots of fun with various art forms!
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PROJECT – CHALK STONES
This was such a simple project and the children have loved getting creative! A twist on story stones that allows the children to create their own pictures or patterns. Also a great fine motor activity that really gets them manipulating their fingers and hands.
Items we used: Stones from the nursery; blackboard paint; chalk
Yes – thats all it took! I used a mixture of flat and irregular shaped stones to create interest. Then just add chalk – white, colour, thick or thin!
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INSECT PLAY PROVOCATION
With the chilly winter days approaching we have been trying to bring a little of the outdoors in with some enticing play provocations. The children had great fun with our insect and spider small world play.
Each day we would add some more natural elements to build homes and hidey holes for all the insects. On one of the days we put out a basket of different textured wool and threads with some scissors to create spider webs – the children spent hours unwrapping the wool, cutting and winding it.
And of course what could be more fun than creating giant size insect shadows with the OHP?!
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