When we visited Kurburoo Kindergarten, Ellie V Pullen Preschool and Kallista Kindergartens this year, we noticed that they had their inside sand play in old drawers.

'Kallista'

'Kurboroo'

'Ellie V.'

What a great idea! The perfect size for moving around and fitting into corners or on tables.

We decided to have a go with our children as we coincidently had a few spare drawers we found under the house (as you do!).

Because the weather was so amazing we took our drawers outside. We set them up near the small sandpit so the children could add as much or as little sand as they wanted.

They gathered up a pile of props – pine cones, bark, logs and rocks from the open shelving …

 as well as an assortment of characters and vehicles.

It wasn’t long before they raided the garden for flowers, leaves …

and large rocks.

What we really loved about the drawers was …

they are so much deeper than the regular trays we’ve been using …

as well as much larger.

Finding a couple of old drawers meant we could provide the smallest of our children with their own play area …

alongside the bigger children.

This not only meant the bigger children’s imaginative play was free to take off without the smaller children ‘crashing the party’ …

but the smallest of our friends got to enjoy the wonderful sensory experience of the cool damp sand simply because it was so irresistible to play with …

without an abundance of props!

We have always tried to included a lot of different sensory experiences in our children’s every day play …

Sometimes in a sensory tub.

Sometimes on the table with the edge around it …

and sometimes just where ever it is!

While visiting Highvale Preschool we saw that the children had created a very interesting sensory tub experience.

They had coloured some rice using black edicol dye and added magnetic and non magnetic items to the tub. How gorgeous does it look?!

Speaking of gorgeous sensory tubs, check out this beauty over at Teach Preschool, where Deborah is preparing to open up her brand new preschool!!

Here are  links to other sensory tub ideas you should check out …

::: Green Slime – Casa Maria’s Creative Learning Zone

::: Making a Rice Pit – Childhood 101

::: Christmas Sensory Tub - Counting Coconuts

::: Garden in a Box – Pink and Green Mama

::: New Year Sensory Tub – Inspiration Surround Creativity Abounds

::: Sensory Tub Ideas List – Our World Classroom

We have noticed that children love treasure boxes and baskets and will play for ages with these exciting but simple props.

Our children lately have been playing with the button basket and the bead container.

We pulled out the jewelery box recently for a young girl while we were waiting for our friends to arrive.

She had the best time, not only placing jewelery on herself…

but draping and arranging it for nearly half an hour …

over a book stand …

which had lots of curly bits on it.

We think she enjoyed just as much carefully rearranging everything back into their correct spots …

in the very special box (with a latch!).

We have posted before about providing activities for our children to encourage their gross motor skills, amongst them tyres, planks and A-frames to balance on and climb over.

One of the most popular pieces of climbing equipment at our kinder was what we called our ‘climbing tree‘, a willow tree with a big droopy branch that was almost horizontal to the ground.

It was used for climbing and cubby making and imaginative and dramatic play – all children need a tree to climb!

Our friend Wendy Mason, a primary school teacher here in Melbourne, has an early childhood blog called www.masonearlyideas.wordpress.com. She has an interesting article called “How does Play fit into an already packed curriculum?“   We like this part which extols the virtues of tree climbing.

What happens when we climb a tree? We are required to problem solve and think carefully as we make judgments between distances and whether the branches will sustain our weight. In this way we start using cognitive function and eye hand coordination.

We need large motor muscles which test and strengthen our physical skills.

Our senses are stimulated by the smell and taste of the leaves in the air, visually with the patterns of leaves around you, or the within the bark, or as you adjust your eyes to the view below you.

Tactile awareness is heightened as you feel the different rough textures of the bark or the tickle of leaves rubbing gently past your cheek and hearing the rustle as they do so.

If we are climbing with a friend we have language and social aspects that come into the experience.

Who wouldn’t have a tree in their playground?

Yesterday we posted on Teacher Tom’s Mom’s very special cooked playdough recipe and as we reported the children LOVED it. Over the years we’ve discovered a variety of playdough recipes, some cooked … some not!

Here is a handy selection of some of the really delicious playdough recipes we’ve used over the years – ENJOY!

::: Our un-cooked recipe

::: Teacher Tom‘s – Mom’s very special recipe

::: Bread Machine Playdough

::: Gluten Free Playdough Recipe

::: Sand Playdough

Image by 'Mini Eco'

::: Mini Eco’s – Festive Scented Playdough

Playdough is one of those perennial favourites that children will play with day after day. Just using little fingers and hands in it is a wonderful sensory and fine motor activity.

Sometimes we added other props such as shells or beads …

cutting implements …

maybe cookie cutters…

and baking trays.

You can colour it or not, make it smelly or not, make it textured or not, add glitter or sand.

It is very versatile.

At Ellie V Pullin they put out rolling pins with rubber shapes on them …

which gave the playdough an interesting look.

We had picked up some wooden shapes from Resource Rescue and thought the children might like to have a go at rolling them in the playdough too.

For no cost, they were a great alternative!

We decided we would test out the wooden shapes on a new playdough recipe – one we’d never tried before …

This is Teacher Tom’s Mom’s very special playdough recipe – he swears it’s the best receipe EVER!

We love to include the children in as much of the preparation and  process as possible …

right down to writing out the recipe!

Now, we don’t normally cook our playdough and the children thought it was very interesting that we were going to cook it on the stove top like food!

We were pretty sceptical too …

but we’ve got to say Mrs.Hobson …

it was voted irresistible indeed!!!

Children love getting dirty – it’s a child’s job really, and where better to get down and dirty than at kindergarten?

We always tried to have a digging patch of some sort at kinder. It was always most popular during the winter months when the ground was good and muddy.

Children just need some gumboots, spades and away they go!

At times when the children lost interest and moved onto other things, we were able to cover over the digging patch with wooden covers made by one of our parents and convert the area to a platform for other activities such as a stage or base for block building.

We have noticed digging patches at a few of the kinders we have been visiting (not so much at the schools) and they are always very popular with the children.

If you haven’t the room for a digging patch, mud in a large tub can still be heaps of dirty fun for the children and of course this can be used outside or in!

For more irresistible mud play inspiration you really can’t go past Jenny over at our favourite Aussie outdoor blog “Let the children play“

Messy play – bring it on!

This post has been added to the  Outdoor Play Link up over at

the wonderful Aussie blog An Amazing Child.

Be sure to pop on over and see what others are playing outdoors this week!

We are enjoying seeing the enthusiasm that many kinders have for their fruit and vegetable patches.

There are different sorts of course, some on a small scale in tyres and tubs …

others in raised beds …

while others we have found in rather sophisticated gardens!

We are told that the children at Holy Trinity Kindergarten were totally involved in the planting, feeding, watering and eating of the vegetables planted in their thriving veggie patch.

The addition of a scarecrow made by the children makes it lots of fun!

They also had the addition of beautiful smelling herbs in pots, which they called their Sensory Garden.

At most centres we have seen compost bins in use, indicating that we as teachers are working hard to get the recycle, reuse message out to children.

Involving the children in the journey of preparing, planting, caring, harvesting and eating in the garden is such a wonderful learning experience for everybody …

and what a joyful way to bring our children back to basics!

Post Script

Due to a few concerns in the comments on this post

we recommend you read this article

before planting your vegetables in old tyres!

We have enjoyed doing casting of objects using clay and plaster in the past …

particularly when the children have been on a bit of a fossil and dinosaur kick.

We have found lately that using damp sand as the base instead of clay is really effective, simple, and always available.

It produces a lovely rough finish to the plaster cast.

You could go large, or on a smaller scale like we did at our Messy Play workshop.

Place some sand into your container, adding water if it is too dry.

Press your object firmly into it. Damp sand means the sand won’t fall into the impression as you remove your object.

Mix up some Plaster of Paris with water, like you would icing sugar, until it is thick …

pour it into the impression and spread it on top of the sand.

Leave it to dry before carefully lifting it off to see the gorgeous detail in your new plaster shape!

Holidays are a great time for nature walks and collecting treasures from the bush.

Our atuumn weather is so fantastic the children are able to spend most of the day outside playing and exploring.

On one adventure they collected a pile of pine cones and we thought it would be fun to make them into some native bird feeders.

All you need is peanut butter, native bird seed, string and open pine cones.

We tied the string around the pine cone so we could hang them in a tree. Wire would have been a better option but we didn’t have any!

We mixed the bird seed with the peanut butter …

- the children choosing to mix with their hands.

Such ooey gooey fun!

Once it’s well mixed all you need to do is stuff the mixture into the open cones.

You can use your hands …

or a knife.

Next they rolled the pine cones firmly into some extra bird seed to cover all the peanut butter.

Taadaa! … Beautiful native bird feeders.

We hung them in the tree and waited.

The very next afternoon we noticed our first visitors had arrived …

Beautiful rosellas …

and they really LOVED them!

PLEASE be aware that some children suffer from peanut allergies, which would make this activity unsuitable.