Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

When we started discussing fossils last week, what they are, how they are found and who does the finding, the children loved the thought of being a paleontologist. So we thought, “OK, let’s give it a go!!”

After reading the story ‘Amanda’s Dinosaur’ by Wendy Orr we thought it would be fun for the children to create their own fossilized eggs.

We supplied balls of tacky clay  …

along with a variety of mini dinos, shells, stones and other small articles of interest.

The children buried their selected item deep into the middle of the clay…

and molded it into an egg shapes.

To make them more rock-like, we popped the finished balls out on the window ledge in the sun to dry out.

The next day, armed with hammers, large nails and brushes, we explained to the children how carefully the fossils needed to be uncovered to prevent them being destroyed …

then they chipped …

ever so carefully …

and brushed away …

still so carefully until …

they discovered …

their fossils!!

Most children chose to chip all the clay away …

and clean up their fossil …

while a few preferred to leave a little of the clay behind …

like the fossils they’d seen pictures of in our science books!

Of course we expected some children would be a little enthusiastic, causing their fossils to be damaged or destroyed, however, to the great delight of all of us, our budding paleontologists did such a careful job that 100% of fossils were successfully uncovered with out any damage!

And of course the fun didn’t end with the discovery of the fossils …

there was still plenty of fun to be had with the left over clay …

pounding it into dust!

What excitement … and so much FUN!

Many children at this early stage of the year still love to paint their hands and swirl them all over the easel paper. Such a wonderful sensory experience!

An added bonus of this is that they create wonderful mixes of colour and enjoy telling us what they have made.

As some children don’t enjoy getting paint all over their hands we thought that they could have a colour mixing experience which wasn’t so messy.

We mixed together primary coloured paints with glue and put them into bowls with little spoons.

The children popped little dobs of the gluey paint onto waxed paper, placed another sheet on top …

then spread the colours around with their hands.

The result was varied and interesting.

When they had dried out, the children cut around their shapes …

and we put them on the window …

so the light would shine through like stained glass.

One child said that they looked like stegosaurus spines.

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”

A friend of ours owns a bread supplies business and loves using her bread machine.

She has sent us a recipe for making playdough in the bread machine which is quick and easy and great for those people who don’t want to get their hands mucky!

Pop the following into the machine:

1 and 1/4  cups water

2 tablespoons olive oil

squirt food colouring

3 cups of plain flour

Set the machine to the dough setting -

it only needs 5 minutes to make a nice pliable dough.

This keeps in the fridge for a couple of weeks or in an airtight container for 4-5 days. As there isn’t any salt in it, it’s OK if the children eat it!

::: make it irresisitible :::

We like to enhance the sensory experience by adding different textures such as sand, the treasure stones, and of course at this time of the year …

… glitter is always a goer!

By using vibrant colours such as the reds and greens and yellows it makes it all the more irresistible on the eye and don’t forget the sense of smell by adding a variety of essences such as peppermint, lemon, eucalyptus etc… Of course by popping on some Christmas music in the background, most sensory bases are covered!

We had some feedback from a Year 1 and 2 teacher at Stockdale Road Primary School in Traralgon about how her students still love play dough. One girl in particular is constantly drawn to it.

She also has a fascination with traffic lights so was supplied with red, yellow and green play dough.

She made four sets of traffic lights …

… and went onto arrange them into four groups of  three…

… and three groups of four.

We put out the same colours for our kindergarten children and they had a ball with it …

…  doing their own take on the activity.

You can imagine the colour it ended up being after a very short time.

What a great colour mixing activity.

We love hearing what our colleagues in primary school are doing with play based learning!!

We had a big tub of slime in the playroom (Lux soap flakes, water and a bit of colouring) which the children had a ball in …

… whooshing their hands and arms through it …

… lifting it up and letting it drop down in slimy strings

(“It looks like eggs, doesn’t it?” commented one child) …

… and creating thick, giant sized bubbles of course!

The ooziest, gooiest, slimiest FUN!!

Most years as a follow up to our Wild Action incursion, we take the children to the Healesville Sanctuary on an excursion. It is a wonderful place to see and learn about our unique Australian animals.

One year we bought a set of Aussie animals from the Sanctuary shop and we pop them into all sorts of imaginary play areas, sometimes by themselves and sometimes with other creatures. Here we have used sand as a basis. The sand is great as it can be dry as we have it here, or wet so that the children can sculpt it however they like. Add a few logs, plants and rocks and there you have it!

In keeping with our current interest in Australian animals we taught the children a new version (one we made up ourselves) of an old favorite song.

The original is:

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,

merry, merry king of the bush is he.

Laugh kookaburra laugh kookaburra,

Gay your life must be!

Our new version sung to the same tune is:

Crocodile sits in the muddy swamp,

Eating all the children – chomp, chomp, chomp.

Snap crocodile snap crocodile,

Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp!

We had some paper plates left over from an eatfest, so popped them out on the table with containers of coloured tissue paper and glue.

We like to leave it up to the children to decide what they would like to do with the materials which we present and just see where they go with it – we find they often have much better ideas than we would have. Children are good at thinking outside the square.

They enjoyed dipping the tissue paper into the glue instead of the using the usual brush.

We were blown away with the variety of shapes and patterns the children came up with.  Some children enjoyed doing quite intricate work …

… while others went for the whole hand scrunch.

Sticky, slimy fingers – yummy!

Whatever way they went, they had fun!

If you are wanting a more permanent modelling mixture, a cooked salt dough could be the way to go. The children can mix it up like ordinary dough, and model it however they like.

Combine:

4 cups plain flour

1 cup cooking salt 

1 and 3/4 cups water

Knead 

for 4-5 minutes until smooth

The children shape the dough.

Place it on a greased tray and bake it 150 degrees C gas/160 degrees C electricity for 2-3 hours (depending on the size) .

When done the dough is lightly browned and should sound hollow when gently tapped.

It could then be decorated with paint or varnish when it has cooled down, if that is what the children want. Other bits such as feathers, eyes, buttons, fabric etc., can also be glued on at this stage.

They covered a yoghurt container with soil and then popped the following into the container:

1/2 cup flour

1 cup white vinegar

red colouring

He stirred it all together then added:

¼ cup bicarb soda

It bubbled up then poured out of the yoghurt container and down the soil. It was very exciting!

The children commented on how it looked just like a real volcano when all the lava flows down the sides.

Then the children had the joy of mixing it all together and playing in the mud – YUM!!