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!
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!
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?!
Tooo many lovely nursery rhymes and too little time! Another theme filled with so many different ideas and opportunities to create lovely provocations for the children… I was given a very special book that was great inspiration and provided a great selection of well known and not so well known nursery rhymes to share with the children.
This year I made a set of nursery rhyme felt characters for the felt board – the children loved them and I’d often overhear them singing the nursery rhymes and enacting the rhymes amongst themselves.
On the table we had a few small provocations of various nursery rhymes – the children had great fun playing with these during the week. Towards the end of the week I created a sensory basin filled with the items together with large shred sawdust – they adored this!
On the other side of the classroom a “little miss muffit” play scene with picnic basket, cushion and of course spider on elasticated thread hanging from the ceiling! The children had an absolute ball with the spider – every time they pulled it it would shoot up into the air – too much fun!
A great week filled with so many creative play based activities and loads of fun!
This week we’ve had a great time with our Easter theme! Beside the usual easter hunt and bunny excitement we had fun exploring texture, colour, music and plenty of movement…
The children had great fun with the easter templates on our felt board – there were bunnies, chicks, mother hen and plenty of easter eggs! As an easter provocation there was an easter landscape filled with basket nests and wooden eggs, scarves, “hidey” holes for eggs, easter bunny, spring animals and assorted loose parts. They spent hours hiding the eggs, sorting them, counting them and re-arranging the items creating their own space.
On the shelves there were plenty of little baskets with lids and wooden eggs and pebble owls to sort, count and explore. I made some felt “eggs” to manipulate the scarves inside – great for fine motor co-ordination. On the tables plenty of sorting trays and plastic eggs to fill with an assortment of different textured pom-poms.
Great bustle and creativity for all before the holidays filled with plenty of open-ended art opportunities, play and general easter excitement!
We had a few days at the end of a term last year when I decided to surprise the children with some frozen fun! It’s not the type of theme or provocation we’d normally have out – but it was the end of term and just suited the general holiday anticipation in the air!
Instead of buying the figurines I found some good frozen pictures I printed and laminated – it actually worked out perfectly as each child could have their own set of each character. I would have never afforded to buy them each a set of actual figurines!
Items I used: white sheet; white tissue paper; white doilies; foil; glass pebbles; wood discs; wood branches; christmas tree branches; shells; christmas baubles; pinecones; tinsel; wooden tree; wooden cave; cotton wool balls; recycled plastic; penguins; bear; laminated characters
Basically I threw together a lot of white, silver, blue and loose parts of different textures and the children had an absolute ball…They re-arranged and built their own frozen landscape together for ages. Interacting with the different creatures and characters – organising the various bits and pieces.
I don’t know about anyone else out there but we have a number of budding palaeontologists at playschool! They absolutely love learning about dinosaurs and are fascinated by all the different types. In this post I’ve included some of our ideas to inspire and encourage creative discussions about dinosaurs. I tried to fill our space with different provocations all over the show – from bigger floor space play areas to tiny cubby spaces – the children loved discovering little surprises all over the show!
Somedays we would have a lush dinosaur jungle filled with dangerous dinosaurs! I made my own rocks and caves using filla foam from the hardware store. I’ve included more on how to make these in another post.
On another day we would have a rocky outcrop filled with caves, volcanoes and waterfalls…
On another just a big floor space filled with different levels and loose parts to get creative.
There was great fun as the children searched for dinosaur “fossils” buried under the sand. They had their own mini spoons and paintbrushes to dig around and discover. (I’ve since done this activity with kinetic sand and I don’t even have to tell you how mesmerising this was!)
The highlight of the week is always a simple volcano experiment. So simple and so much fun. The children will do this over and over taking turns – their delight is contagious…
I just love dinosaur week – the enthusiasm and excitement is paramount!
FREE RESOURCES:
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This was an easy project and something I use so often – my first inexperienced attempt to make a miniature treehouse!…There are some really gorgeous pictures online as inspiration – it totally depends on your level of wood working skill and the tools you have available to use. I’m constantly using them in play provocations for the children with varying loose parts and am always excited when I see the reactions and outcomes.
Items we used: sanded non-toxic wood in varying size and shape; sand paper; glue gun; drill and screws.
The hardest part is finding the correct pieces of wood. We had cut down a number of trees in our garden the previous year and after checking they were non toxic species had stored them to dry for a number of months. Alternately find a saw mill that is able to sell/donate you off cuts. Along with some larger wood rings we used for the base and platforms from a saw mill, we had enough to start assembling and figuring out how everything was going to fit together.
The process was largely trial and error. The pieces all had to be sanded and smoothed to ensure no splinters could make their way into little fingers – although I didn’t want it to have too much of a “finished” look. (You can achieve this by de-barking your wood and applying beeswax sealant or coconut oil to it). I wanted it to be quite high in relation to the children to encourage play on different levels. Patient husband put the main screws in the base and larger branches and platforms that formed the basic structure. Once these were in place we pretty much played around with the smaller rings creating steps to the various platforms.
We used the left overs to make other smaller wooden elements for play. The process was really fun and has since then inspired me to make many more basic wooden play “landscapes” for the children to use. They really love the natural solid comforting texture of the wood and spend ages adapting the materials to suit their creative moods.
sharing ideas on early childhood play provocations and learning environments
sharing ideas on early childhood play provocations and learning environments
sharing ideas on early childhood play provocations and learning environments
sharing ideas on early childhood play provocations and learning environments
sharing ideas on early childhood play provocations and learning environments
Ideas and Reflections from a Project Based Preschool
Inquiry-based Learning / Outdoor Learning / All Things Play
Documenting life without school and free childhood.
sharing ideas on early childhood play provocations and learning environments
sharing ideas on early childhood play provocations and learning environments
sharing ideas on early childhood play provocations and learning environments
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