Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

We have had this rather interesting construction set for many years but the children have never show too much interest in it other than to use the long spiral poles as swords and guns!

This week however we moved the buckets which house this construction set closer to our large wooden blocks, down near our building platform …

and they brought them out to play!

They spent hours here working together. “We’re building a machine” said Zake.

“We even made some plans!”

The screw action on this construction is quite challenging for young fingers.

“We need some rubber bands to make the propellors on the engine go!”

We were so proud of the time and effort they spent in constructing their machine.

It was great to see the children so engaged …

cooperatively carrying out their ideas …

all working together.

We think at last this construction set is going to be a hit.

It seems this ‘old‘ construction set may become the ‘new‘ construction set and all because we moved it six meters along the path … could it really be that easy?!

We’ve link this post to Nurture Stores Play Academy

Pop on over and see what other children are playing at this week!

We have a delightful friend at kinder named Joss. He is one of those boys who wants to be always busy. When we hear Joss say “I haven’t got a hobby … I need a hobby” we know it’s time to suggest some new ideas.

We’ve experienced some really wet days lately, resulting in the children being forced to play too long inside. On one of these days last week we knew that Joss would be needing a hobby to occupy himself until he could get outside again.

Construction is always a great activity for creative children like Joss. We had set out a few tubs of manipulative play as the children filed in out of the rain and the one Joss was drawn to was brightly coloured, interesting, challenging and open ended.

This set is called “K’Nex education” and comes with large cards displaying picture instructions for making a multitude of thing. By laying the construction pieces over the picture the children are more easily able to follow the directions, if this is the way they want to go.

But Joss had other ideas! The way he searched through the tub it was clear he had a plan!

“I’m going to make an alien Donna but I don’t need those pictures ‘cos they’re not scary enough and aliens are always scary!”

Joss has an exploring and investigative mind with a colourful imagination.

It was very interesting to listen to Joss as he explained each step in the construction of his alien. It was as if he was hosting his own D.I.Y. television show.

“Look Donna, that’s cool hey?  Now for the little guys”!

“What do you think Donna? This is the dad ‘cos he’s the strongest. He’s my favourite! See the flicking bits, they’ve got poison in them.  I’m warning you DON’T touch them or you’ll get poisoned and you’ll die. Aliens are really bad you know! This guys job is to protect the littler aliens with his poison. He doesn’t shoot it, he flicks it out! … grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

Irresistible aliens Joss!

So often we talk about ‘the journey along the way being more important than the destination ‘ in children’s learning but children like Joss are the exception. For Joss the journey is simply the trek up the mountain … it’s the breathtaking view from the top that gives him the greatest satisfaction!

These aliens did not get taken apart at pack up time as Joss asked to be able to play with them again when he next comes to kinder and even though that will be in five days time, Joss will not forget!

We love to tell stories to the children as well as read to them. There is so much more engagement from them when you can look them in the eye the whole time the story is unfolding.

We have a peg puzzle which is the story of the giant turnip (although we do admit the turnip does looks like a carrot!) and it is a really fun story to do as a group, particularly as it is so action packed.

It is so good pretending to pull up that turnip altogether as a team.

Slowly each character gets involved in pulling up the giant turnip, quite unsuccessfully until the end as you’ll remember.

The children love that the animals get roped in to help.

The last pull takes a huge effort and fortunately is successful!

Next time we told the story we got the children to be the characters …

while another child took on the roll of the narrator. They always love to be involved in the acting and telling of familiar stories.

We drew up some pictures of each character which the children can wear around their necks …

and as each character struggles to pull up the turnip  …

the childen invite the next character up to help out.

Another great way the children can tell the story themselves is with our lovely puppet theatre.

We have some more ‘giant turnip’ characters which we laminated and attached to pop sticks giving the children another opportunity to act out the story….

It was lovely to see the story being acted out from both sides of the curtain!

We believe you can never have too many opportunities to tell a good story!