Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

Following our Wild Action incursion, we enlarged some photos of the animals we saw.

We then laminated them and put a velcro dot on the back so we could use them on a felt board.

By adding Australian bush props, the children could make up their own scenarios.

The children then made their own animals …

… popped the dots on the back and used mini felt boards which we had obtained from Reverse Art.

We also used these animals for a “Who am I?” game.

One at a time the children would choose an animal and pop it on the felt board out of sight of the others. They then described the creatures features, such as, “I am cold blooded, I have scoot scales on my tail, I have 66 teeth etc … Who am I?”

The children were so great at this game. They clearly took in a lot of information during our Wild Action visit!

When our Pre-kinder children arrived …

… they replaced the Aussie animals with a bucketload of felt characters and farm animals …

… and had a great time creating their own stories and play scenarios.

Quite a few of our families are heading off for holidays at the moment, mostly to sunny spots such as Fiji or Queensland. As the children’s interest in snails hasn’t waned, we asked them what sort of holiday a snail would have considering they move so slowly. The sorts of ideas the children came up with were “The next plant” or “The next door neighbours”.

We asked them to think about what sort of holiday they would like to go on if they were snails and they came up with some great destination ideas like; the moon, the supermarket, Queensland, Fairyland, the beach, the footy and the city!

They drew their snails, …

… some drew their holiday destination too.

Then an adult wrote the holiday story out for them …

… if they couldn’t do it themselves.

One child who wrote his own said, “I wanted my snail to go to the circus, but I didn’t know the word. Then I thought he could go to church, but I didn’t know the word, so he is going to the farm because I DID know that word!“

At the end of each session the children read out their own stories to the others.

Then we made their stories into books …

…  for everyone to enjoy.

Collective nouns can be beautiful and evocative, even poetic!

Like the collective noun for snails …

… ‘an ascargatoire’ of snails!  How magnificent is that?!

Then there is also a rout of snails and a walk of snails

Here’s an nice, simple poem we taught the children about snails.

If you get excited about collective nouns like we do, or simply enjoy learning new and interesting language, visit our ‘collective nouns’ link, and like us you may just discover a whole new language!

There is a lot of science that we do with the children which is quick and needs very little preparation. Of course that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t get the children thinking.

We have done the first part of this experiment with them before, but it is always a good thing to do a repeat performance.

We held up two identical pieces of paper and asked them which piece would land on the ground first. (They landed together)

Then we scrunched up one piece and dropped them at the same time. Most children remembered how the aerodynamics worked, which meant the ball of paper dropped more rapidly.

Next Sherry held up a tennis ball and a basketball at the same height to see which would hit the ground first. They hit at the same time.

We did the experiment a different way, this time holding the tennis ball on top of the basketball right in the middle.

When they landed the tennis ball went shooting off right up to the ceiling!! The children just cracked up.

When we questioned the children why this happened to the balls, in both groups some clever possums said it was the bounce from the big ball which sent the little ball shooting off, and they were absoloutely right.  It is the shock waves from the bottom of the basketball shooting up to the top of it and into the tennis ball, which sends it careering off.

An analogy would be that if you hit the back of your head hard, you would end up with two black eyes from the shock waves which bounced through your brain from the back to the front … pretty scary stuff!

We waited until we went outside to give the children a go.

Step 1. Hold the tennis ball on top of the basketball, directly in the center.

Step 2. Drop both balls together and stand back …

… as the tennis ball goes bouncing high into the air!

The children eagerly lined up and patiently took turns at the experiment, helping each other to find the center of the ball … we so love the way the children help each other out!

Time and time again the children tried the experiment, and time and time again they were amazed by what happened.

The trick is to find the center of the basketball.

We are sooo lucky!!! Things just seem to fall into place for the children and us. Just as we are getting excited about frogs and discussing metamorphosis, Sherry’s son said, “We have a heap of taddies in a tub on our verandah, Mum. Would you like some for kinder?” (As they were not taken from the wild, we are confident that it is OK to bring them here.)

Next thing, here they are, nestled next to the snails and ants – what a menagerie we have at the moment.

We had just set them up as the children poured into kinder and they couldn’t wait to look at them.  Naturally they reached for those ever popular magnifying glasses. Some children didn’t even get to pop their bags away before they were peering into the tub.

Just as they are with our snails and ants, the children are endlessly fascinated with the tadpoles. It’s wonderful to see them showing such an interest in nature, asking endless questions about the process of metamorphosis, wanting to know about the different foods our creatures like to eat as well as noticing the vast differences in their living environments. Children are so inquisitive and do love to learn interesting facts and information!

Please note that you usually need a licence from your relevant State Government to keep tadpoles. In our case they are Southern Brown Tree Frogs (Litoria ewingi) so we don’t need a licence for them. We will ensure that they are released back into their own environment.

For information on care of tadpoles and frogs, get in touch with the Amphibian Research Centre through our ‘Frogs’ link.

When our children were creating hats with their grandparents just before Melbourne Cup Day, some made headpieces with antennaes and they said they were aliens.

The children loved it so after a discussion about what an alien looks like, we put out materials for more children to make alien head gear.

The only catch was we asked them to follow some simple instructions.  At this later stage of the year most children recognise their numbers up to 10 so they didn’t need verbal instruction.

We left the creative side up to them and the results were as different as each child! It was interesting to see how the children interpreted the instructions. Some read it as; 1 feather, 2 straws, 3 pop sticks, 4 patty pans and 5 sticker dots, while other interpreted it as 5 single objects.

We staged a fashion parade, then popped on a song;

“Little Purple Alien” by Scott Browne …

… and away they went, dancing and bopping to the the great music!

The next time we played the song (we have found the children love to hear, sing and move to the same music time and time again), we gave them some different props which gave it a new angle.

They had to figure out the left hand gloves from the right hand gloves but once that was sorted they could hold the props and move them to the music how ever they liked.

They made very cute one eyed purple aliens!

As the children continue to be interested in purple aliens we pulled out the salt ceramics (see our post on salt ceramic chickens post on October 16th for the recipe) …

…  and again, the resulting models were widely varied.

A few days later the children collected some styrofoam balls and coloured pom-poms from the invention table …

… and created different alien creature …

… sooooooo cute!

As a precursor to an activity we will be inviting the children to do soon, we put out some eye droppers and coloured water for them.

They LOVE using eye droppers! We also put out a variety of papers over a week or so.

When the paper had a sheen to it, the paint ran off in interesting dribbles.

The children often put way too much on, so they also ended up with a big blob all intermingled, which looks pretty interesting too.

Watch the floor as they try to juggle their pictures outside to the drying rack!! It is a good idea in this case to have a container for them to carry their masterpieces out in.

When the paper has a little more absorption, the paintings ended up being a mix of runny and blobby, depending on how much the children squirted on.

Lastly we put out paper towel which has huge absorption, so again, quite a different look to the end result. In every case there was a wonderful mixing of colours and many excited children exclaiming about the magic they had performed.

We recently obtained an ant farm (on sale at Aldi, but you can also purchase them from Australian Geographic). The children went on the hunt for us and found an ants’ nest in the sleepers around a garden bed.

It wasn’t easy to catch them and Donna had them running up and down her arm. As funny as it was, there must be an easier way!

All the ants needed to be collected from the same nest as different ant colonies will fight with each other!

The children were very good ant catchers and about thirty ants were finally ensconsed in the farm.

We had to sticky tape it to the bench as some children just can’t help themselves and want to shake it up!

The ants were very busy and quickly started making tunnels.

We added a plastic tube and feeder so the children could watch the ants busily collecting the food.

Communication and team work in an ant community is fascinating to watch.

Again, we added magnifying glasses for an up close, and personal look at this active community.

Science and nature always creates lots of interest and discussion amongst the children.

We currently have our ant farm occupying one end of a block trolley and our snail house the other!

We have since discovered that a small bowl of sugar syrup left beside the sleepers is the easiest way to collect new ants for the colony.

Collective nouns for ants;

an army of ants – a colony of ants – a swarm of ants

One inexpensive and easily obtainable, or made prop that we use is the good old scarf.

We find it has many uses during dancing and play including as a music prop, such as in Boa Constrictor (see post on parachute fun on October 6th), or Calypso by Susie Davies and Phil Splitter from their Razzamajazz CD.

When one of our boys fell awkwardly and broke his arm recently we popped a sling on him (we were very thankful for our regular first aid training), then he was whisked off to hospital by his mum.

When he left about half of the group of children went out in sympathy and asked to have a sling on too. As we didn’t have enough proper slings for them all, out came the scarves!

The bright colours looked fabulous and it certainly helped everyone cope with the trauma.

The children thought it was fun for a while.

But once reality kicked in and they realized how hard it is to play using one arm…

…they soon ditched their slings!

Coincidentally, another one of our children had broken his arm, falling off his bike at home just two days earlier. Both boys have now returned to kinder and are coping really well … fortunately they are able to play without using slings!

We are very lucky to have several dolls’ houses of different sizes available for the children to play with, and we like to set them up outside as well as inside.

Recently we placed a large pine dolls’ house inside on a low bench, and in order to make it irresistible to the children we set it up with an assortment of different textured fabrics, carpet squares and natural materials. We included a large mirror for added interest, and draped a soft curtain over the top to create a cosy cubby effect.

We have a number of baskets kept nearby on low shelving containing assorted props which the children are free too choose and include in their play as they please.  Here the children have chosen some cane furniture, small wooden animals and people as well as a mini playground set.

A dolls’ house is a great place for children to play alone and lose themselves in their imagination …

… then again it’s a great social area when you invite friends to play .

And we really love it when unexpected guests drop in …

… on their way home!