Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

We like to have plenty of imaginative and sensory play areas for the children and this week we combined the two.

By tipping buckets of sand into last weeks water play, we created a dinosaur swamp using some mini dinosaur skeletons and a few large rocks.

The children had a very messy but delightful time burying and digging up the dinos.

They said it was a bit like being a pirate finding hidden treasure.

Water and sand went everywhere and we realised that placing the tub next to the board displaying our treasure maps …

wasn’t a smart idea!! … splish, splosh, splash!

This naturally led onto a discussion about archeology and fossils, so the next step was for the children to create their own fossils.

They used a variety of objects …

like shells, bones, coral and plastic dinosaurs.

They pressed them into clay …

leaving nice deep imprints …

then we mixed up the plaster and scooped it on top.

By the end of the session the plaster was dry enough to be taken off.

Uncovering the fossils was very exciting!

and ta-raa their very own ‘fossils’ to take home!

In the words of our friend Aiden to his Mum at the end of kinder today …

“Hey look what we found today … dinosaur fossils”

We are playing a few different memory games with the children, in small and large groups.

We thought a great large group game would be the one where items are placed on a tray and covered.

One or two things are removed without the children looking (yeah, right!) and they tell us what has gone.

A pirate-themed one seemed obvious to us and amongst other things we had a mini pirate hat, like the children made with the newspaper.

Some children thought it was a sail boat so we all decided it would be great to see if we could make and float them.

We have to admit it wasn’t a great success – the boats just sogged up and sank. (Cover paper works a lot better).

It could perhaps be because we used a cut up street directory and the paper was way too thin.

Needless to say, the children gathered up other other floating objects from around the kinder …

as well as objects that didn’t float …

and had a heap of fun in the water, so all was not lost!

We chatted to the children about how the melway paper boats didn’t work and what we could use another time.

One bright spark came up with the idea of using corks to make boats, so that will become our next project.

Little pots of small interesting goodies such as beads, buttons, stones, corks etc…

… are just waiting to be popped onto the measuring scales to have their weights checked and compared.

We find adding the tweezers not only makes it more fun, but adds to the fine motor skill needed to accomplish the task.

The doll at the back in the chair is a prop to make the activity look more enticing, but of course, will probably become part of the play!

And there she goes!

Donna then brought along an old photo frame from home which has various compartments for different sized photos.

She took out the photos and glass and popped different coloured paper into each space with another selection of small bits and pieces.

Once again lots of wonderful fine motor activity …

and sorting took place.

More great play based learning!

One of our boys bounced into kinder and told everyone that he was going on a holiday to “Pirate Bay”, which got the whole group talking about pirates and what they do.

The children decided they wanted to make pirate hats. Fortunately we have plenty of newspaper available, so we set up a table.

We showed the children how to fold an old favourite, simple style, triangular pirate hat …

and off they went.

They managed extremely well to follow the instructions and we were very impressed!

They folded, stuck and decorated their hats.

They did a wonderful job and they looked fantastic!

Pirates of course hunt for treasure, so many of the children went off and made their own maps.

This was very exciting!

One child even made the “X to mark the spot”!

Then they headed outside armed with their maps.

They hid treasure!

They searched for treasure  …

and they dug for treasure!

Large groups of children spent the whole morning in the sandpit digging up a large assortment of treasures.

Uncovering all sorts of things from cars, boats and spades to old shells and stones. Some children even uncovered what must have been … dinosaur bones!

While others preferred to collected ‘clean treasure’ from around the kinder.

We finished off the day with the whole group creating a map of our playground …

… all drawn by the children!

Then we went en masse, following the instructions on the map, through the playground until …

we found the treasure hidden in the ‘pirate boat’!

Naturally all the children were very excited to be able to take a piece of the precious treasure home!

Considering the early stage of the year, the children were amazingly cooperative and worked extremely well together as a group.

By the way, we changed a well known song, “A sailor went to sea, sea, sea” to “A pirate went to sea, sea, sea”! The children loved it!

We have a fun ‘fishy’ song we like to teach the children. It’s one of our favourite action songs to teach early in the year and it is called “Slippery Fish”.

Placing our hands together we swim them in front of our bodies and sing …

Slippery fish, slippery fish,

swimming in the water, swimming in the water,

slippery fish, slippery fish.

Putting our hands up to our face we look astonished! … Haaaah!

He just got eaten by a …

Slicing hands in a sweeping clap we sing …

tuna fish, tuna fish,

splashing in the water, splashing in the water,

tuna fish, tuna fish.

Look astonished again! … Haaah!

He just got eaten by a …

With our hand like a fin on top of our heads we sing …

great white shark, great white shark,

lurking in the water, lurking in the water,

great white shark, great white shark.

More astonishment! … Haaah!

He just got eaten by a …

Arms extended from our bodies, rocking from foot to foot…

humungus whale, humungus whale,

wallowing in the water, wallowing in the water,

humungus whale, humungus whale.

At the end of the song the children like to dive down into the water which is a fun way to get them to sit in a circle ready for our next round of fun.

As part of our chatting about the sea, we read the story of “The Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister. Most of the children are familiar with this series and really love  it. We pulled out a memory game which the children could enjoy playing in a small group.

There are many cards in the game, but as this is the first time we have done it together, we chose a small selection so it wouldn’t be too overwhelming. The children turn two cards over when it is their turn and try to make a pair. This is a great opportunity for many of them to become aware of the concept of taking it in turns in a particular order ie clockwise around the table.

They placed their pairs gleefully in front of themselves. We try avoid the “winning” thing and just feel pleased when someone finds a pair.

We let the children reset the game, encouraging them to spread the pairs around rather than next to each other.

After a couple of sessions of the children playing this in small groups, we have a go in the large group with a game called ”Tic tac toe”.

About 10 cards are spread out in the middle of the circle and one child uses a pointer, touching each card until the following song finishes.

Tic-tac-toe,

here I go,

where I land I do not know.

They turn that card over and try to remember where the matching pair is then pass the pointer onto another child. It’s a great game for small OR large groups.

Musical instruments are fairly expensive and sometimes we want plenty of the same sort so that everyone has one. When we wanted a set of drums, we asked our mums who used formula to feed their babies if we could have the empty tins with lids.

It didn’t take long before we had enough for a group of children and any adults who were with us for the session.

All we did was cover them with bright paper and they are fine for little hands. We have a few favourite pieces we play them with such as Little Drum (Feel the Beat – Kids Music Company), All of a sudden (Teddy Jumps – Kids Music Company) and before we pop them back into their storage box, we usually like to play Pass the drum (Echo Fred – Kids Music Company).

We have to beat the drum to different tempos and speeds, then pass the drums around the circle. The music gets faster and faster and the children just love it!

It took a while to have the passing of the drums happening smoothly – we started off with a few drums, then every second person had one, until finally the whole group managed to pass them on with some sort of consistency. It was well worth persisting with.

As the children are just settling in to the new year, we like to sing old familiar songs which the children are comfortable with, but with a twist so they feel a bit more ‘grown up’. An example is the well known favourite, “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes”.

This is the way we sing it with a jazzier tune than the regular one:

Heads, shoulders, knees and toes,

knees and toes.

Heads, shoulders, knees and toes,

knees and toes

and eyes and ears and mouth and nose.

Heads, shoulder, knees and toes, knees and toes.

We sing it through as it should be, then each time after that we touch all body parts mentioned in the song but one by one leave out their names.

….. , shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes etc

….. , ………, knees and toes, knees and toes etc.

….. , ……… , …..  and toes, ….. and toes etc.

….. , ……… , …..  … …., ….. … …. etc.

In the end, the whole song is totally quiet with us all just moving our hands up and down our bodies. We find the children are very proud of themselves when they can do this altogether and without prompting from the teachers.

Any body who has been following our blog since it began last September will know our mantra is “make it irresistible”  and that every day we strive to make our center and activities as irresistible as we can in order to attract our students to experience all they can! Well, a little while ago, Jenny from over at “Progressive Early Childhood Education” (see link) left us a comment saying:

“I’d love to see what your table looks like at the end of an activity! They always look so inviting and pleasing at the beginning but I can’t imagine that the hive of activity they must inspire would leave them that way.“

Well Jenny you are absolutely right, lots of play means lots of ‘mess’, so here are the before and after snap shots of some of the activities our children really enjoyed during week one, 2010.

Invention Table … before.

and  … after!

Playdough … before.

and playdough … after!

(The yellow playdough only lasted a couple of days and the blue is looking pretty shoddy already!)

Dinosaur play .. before.

dinosaurs … after!

Puzzle area .. before.

and … after!

Bush box, fishing game … before.

… after!

Colour matching game … before.

Colour matching game … after!

Block play … before.

whoaaaa! … and after!

Well Jenny there you have it! Lots and lots of busy play naturally means lots and lots of busy mess. So you know what happens next … we set it all up again and wait for more busy, busy play!

Thanks for you comment Jenny. If any body else has anything they would like to see or hear about, please feel free to ‘Contact Us‘ we’d be very happy to share with you!!

One of our boys was playing with some construction and decided he wanted to make some ‘Transformers’ out of the same equipment. He felt it was best to make a plan first, so he sat down with Donna and slowly drew.

He wanted to make a “good one” (Bumble Bee) and a “bad one” .

Not only did he clearly draw each character – the good one in yellow with a smile and the bad one in black with a snarl – he was able to write GOOD and BAD as well.

Then he got out the construction materials and followed his plan very successfully.

He asked Donna to help him sort some pieces first

and then he was off!

He was so focused

constantly referring back to the shapes on the plan.

Spectacular!

What wonderful literacy from a five year old!