Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

We have assorted umbrellas which we use in different areas around our kindergarten.

Laying on it’s side on the platform this canvas umbrella …

makes an ideal quiet spot.

While we like to use this umbrella inside to add irresistible colour to the room, and we are able to hang things off it as added decoration if we so choose. That’s not to say we never use it in the great outdoors as well … ‘cos we do!

This beautiful earthy, timber, outdoor umbrella frame was a curbside find during a hard rubbish collection (and yes we did ask the owners for permission before we took it away!). All that was wrong with it was the canvas cover had gone a little mouldy, so we took the cover off and now it is a real feature at kinder and we use it all year round, sometimes outside, sometimes in …we just love it! See our Disco C.D. post on November 9th 2009, to see hoe we jazzed it up in the hush garden.

Sometimes we drape fabric or netting over it and sometimes we leave in natural, in time something always end up hanging off it, even if it is just a friendly snake or two!

Here we’ve hung an old umbrella upside down with the nylon cover removed to display things the children have threaded.

This is an old golf umbrella some body left at kinder years ago, so we have put it to good use as a prop. It has a straight handle so we can pop it straight into the umbrella stand or, as we have here, cushion it inside a terracotta pipe for stability ….

This mini umbrella came with an insulated wine cooler and made it’s way to kinder. (The umbrella … not the wine cooler!) It is the perfect size to use in imaginary play and is particularly cute in our sand trays or as seen here in our bush box.

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!!

At this early stage of the year, we seem to have a bit of a focus on colours, such as our colour matching game in one of our recent posts. A great large group game the children enjoy playing is called “This my spot”.

Each child sits behind a spot of their choice. We used four colours: red, blue green and yellow.

Together we hit our spots chanting,

“This is my spot, my spot, my spot.

This is my spot, my spot, my spot.”

Then repeat.

Simple, but fun and even our reluctant boys do this with gusto!

The teacher chooses a colour and the children with that spot stand up and do an action: green spots clapped hands three times .

Those children sit back down and we all chant the rhyme again. The next colour is chosen and the children with that spot stand up for their turn: yellow spots patted their head three times .

In between each colour we sit down and repeat the song: blue spots turned around three times .

This is repeated until all colours have been selected to do a different action: red spots did three star jumps!

We round it off by chanting one last time, then all colours are selected to stand up and put all actions together.

At the end of the game we sing the colours to be returned to the basket. Great colour recognition, counting, and turn taking.

::: make it irresistible

The children really enjoy repeating new songs and games, so as a follow up the next day when we played ‘this is my spot,’ as we selected colours to stand up, we invited one child from each colour group to choose the action their colour would do, as well as how many times they would do it. The children came up with some terrific actions – red spots did 4 star jumps, blue spots did 5 wiggles, green spots did 6 hand claps and yellow spots did 5 hand rolls.

The children take great pride in making simple decisions like choosing an action to perform and as we’ve often said before, they usually come up with the best ideas … after all … 5 wiggles … how devine is that!

If you have been following our activites, you will be aware that we love our bush box which Donna’s husband, Colin, made for us.

We have adapted it for many uses and placed it in various spots around the room.

It’s wonderful for imaginary play.

And it’s proven to be indispensable in our room!

At this early stage of the year, we have made it into a fishing pond.

The ground is green card and material, the water is blue card with plants, rocks and logs popped in for more interest.

Lovely for just one or two players …

or even more!

We take a lot of pride in setting up our room, and in so doing we try to keep it as uncluttered as we can, but we do like to have a few things hanging around to break up the space.

We use a variety of things such as curtains, strips of material, netting and fly strips

which are colourful and adaptable to different areas.

Another hanging piece which is bright without being obtrusive is a bead curtain. We seem to have gathered a few of these over the years and like to use them in different ways.

At the moment we have some framing the door as everyone comes in …

…and we used an old umbrella as the basis for another bead curtain arrangement suspended over our fishing game.

We find they are beautiful without being obtrusive.

We decided a number of years ago that it would be nice to have the children create group projects we could display for everybody to enjoy.

Once, after we had read the delightful story of elmer by David McKee the children began creating beautiful patchwork pictures by cutting up squares of brightly coloured paper and pasting them to pictures they had drawn themselves.  This gave us the idea of having the children create a group mosaic picture for display, so we introduce them to the basics of mosaic art.

We have lots of bits and pieces in tubs we have collected over the years so the children set out to gather up objects to use for our project. Sorting through everything was great for their fine motor skills as they found items like corks, bottle tops, tiles and glass stones as well as some very tiny beads, buttons and sequins.

We had two pieces of ‘mdf’ given to us by one of our crafty mums which was perfect for the project. We used PVA glue to stick the decorations onto the timber as it is strong and dries colourless.  Some children preferred to use a small brush or cotton bud for the glue while others enjoyed the sensation of using their fingers, and what fun they had in peeling the dried glue off their hands and fingers afterwards.

We explained to the children the idea was to position the objects close to each other, covering as much of the board as they could and boy they did a fantastic job!

Every body got involved and the result was absolutely beautiful. The children really enjoyed being part of a team and took great pride in what they had achieved together as a group. The mosaics are now on permanent display in our room.

Following the success of our mosaic project we invited to children to create a series of mosaic pavers.

You can see how we used the pavers in our ‘make it irresistible – with a hush garden‘ post on January 11th.

Our invention table is one of our most popular play areas, where the children are free to create whatever their hearts desire!

We keep it well stocked with recycled bits and pieces we’ve collect over time like cardboard, boxes, assorted papers, various types of containers, timber, ribbons and wool etc… as well as things our wonderful families and friends collect and send along for us to use. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure and all that jazz….so true, so true!

The area has a large table at which the children can create and they are encouraged to explore the invention table whenever they need supplies to add to any of our other activities throughout the day.

We have found through experience that by keeping the supplies in easily accessible tubs, in a locker we designed, the children are able to choose the tubs they need, use their contents and return them to the shelves when finished … Okay! well, that is what we encourage them to do anyway!

We are constantly adding to and changing the items in the tubs …

… depending on what we have available.

The children are encouraged to ask an adult for help when they need us to use things like the guillotine, stanley knife or large scissors but they always have access to tools and supplies like the following:

And of course if what they want or need isn’t there, all they have to do is ask and we will endeavour to get it for them or come up with a suitable replacement.

The children really enjoy hitting a ball with a bat, it’s a great gross motor exercise as well as being good for their hand-eye co-ordination, but as a hitting partner is not always available, we came up with a partner who just loves hanging around!

As we find that the balls tend to end up over the fence fairly often, we decided that a ball that couldn’t go anywhere would be a really good idea.

We found an old sock and tied it to some strong cord then hung it from a tree where it is always ready for play.

The children can either play by themselves or with a friend.

This pink ball is a actually a swing but only when we attach it to our swing frame.

When it hangs above the decking from the tree the children understand it is not to be sat on but is for pushing and catching. Again it is great to play with on your own or with a group of friends.

Sometimes we hang up a large leather ball which they can kick or punch instead!

Over the years we’ve set our room up in many different and interesting ways.

Big changes are made before the children start the year however despite this, we try not to change the look so much that the children returning from last year don’t recognise the place.

The children’s lockers are kept in the same place each year and although the activities may be in a slightly different space we always have our core play stations such as the invention table, writing area, puzzles, library, snack table, block play, sensory play, creative activities and lots and lots of dramatic and imaginary play areas.  Changes made throughout the year are more of an extension to the play space than a total change.

By adding things like umbrellas and hanging curtains …

or netting …

we can enhance the look of the area …

and create lovely little play spaces …

where one …

or a group of children can play.

Children love private, cosy places to play so positioning trolleys on angles is great for creating little cubby effects …

and quiet out of the way spots.

Low partitions are also a great idea .

Don’t forget to use the top of the block trolley as a play surface.

It’s the ideas size and height for imaginary play!

Including plenty of natural materials to the play area is really important…

and positioning the play on low surfaces …

including the floor is ideal.

By simply brightening up a wall with seasonal and interesting pictures we are able to create some really irresistible visual areas …

while large posters …

and murals …

are wonderful enhancements!

::: make it irresistible

One thing we don’t do is create clutter!!!!  The kindergarten room is already full of stimulation with adults and children forever creating noise and being constantly on the move, so something you’ll notice about our room is that we don’t clutter it up with lots and lots of unnecessary stuff hanging from windows walls and ceilings.

While striving to create an exciting, irresistible space which reflects a friendly and inviting atmosphere we believe it is very important to leave areas free from distraction … places where the children can rest their eyes, and their minds!!!

How many times have you successfully asked your children to sit or stand in a circle on your square mat?  Chances are it often creates confusion and muddle … right?

For years we struggled with making circles on a square mat and then one day it occurred to us … either we should sit and stand in a square or … get a round mat.  So! we got a round mat!

We had it made it two halves, in different colours to add a bit of interest, which means we can split it in half if we so choose and we are able to instruct the children to sit or stand in one half when the need arises. The line down the middle has also come in handy at different times during action songs, mat play, games etc.,

The colours are great, the shape is great and it’s ever so practical … we love it!