Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

Here’s a wonderful action chant we like to do with our children when they need to burn off a little energy. It’s called “Hi, my name is Joe“. It’s great for getting the children up and moving. It’s loads of fun and a good gross motor exercise!

We chant it like this -

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

“Well push this button with your hand!”

Using one hand (to push an imaginary button up and down or in and out) the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

… “Well push this button with your other hand!”

Using two hands the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

… “Well push this button with your foot!”

Using two hands and one foot the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

… “Well push this button with your other foot!”

Using two hands and two feet the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

… “Well push this button with your head!”

Using two hands, two feet and your head the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said “No” …

… “Well push this button with your tongue!’

Using two hands, two feet, your head and your tongue the song repeats …

Hi, my name is Joe and I work in a button factory. One day my boss came up to me and said “Are you busy Joe?” and I said (with hands on hips and stamping one foot hard to the ground … “YES!“

Following Jackson’s suggestion when admiring our painted sticks, we gathered up some goodies for the children to make wind chimes. Our yard is going to look fabulous!

We already had some utensils with holes in them from past activities and added electric wire covers, beads, small bells, foil cases, sticks, wooden beads etc… really anything that could be threaded and could cope with being outside in the wind.

One of the lovely parishioners from the church brought us a box of wood offcuts, so out came the trusty drill.

While we were at it, we thought the children may as well drill holes into other things such as gumnuts and sticks.

We didn’t offer the children needles this time …

preffering them to have a go using their fingers to thread with fishing line …

which proved to be another great fine motor challenge!

Our children love any threading activity and are always engaged here for long periods of time.

Gone are the days when the children want to take everything they make home. Now they love the idea of putting their creations into group displays.

We hung our windchimes from our sunblinds just outside the door …

this way we can lower …

and raise them to catch the wind!

We so love it when the children come up with such irresistible ideas.

Good on you Jackson!

As we were planning to do a group sewing project, we thought we would give the children a gentle introduction to sewing …

by using those polystyrene trays that meat comes on from the butcher or supermarket along with plastic needles and wool.

We also supplied lots of glittery stuff and other bits and pieces …

for them to decorate the trays with.

It is a hard concept to understand the whole …

threading the needle …

pushing it in and out …

pull the thread the whole way through thing.

After having a good go at that …

and producing some fabulous creations …

we swapped everything over to a material base.

This time we used sharper metal needles and finer cotton thread …

still with lots of glitter and other fun things.

Another irresistible group project!

This post is linked to the ‘Nuture Store –  Play Academy“

Please click on over to see what others are playing at this week!