At our ‘Miniature Playscapes‘ workshops, the participants made, amongst other things, little bead people to enhance their playscapes.

We had quite a selection of different sized beads

and of course our trusty glue guns.

We also had wool for hair,

material for clothing if they wanted …

and fine felt tipped pens if they wished to add features.

Look at the array of different people created!

Each person’s unique …

we were really impressed.

We have always found the invention table to be one of the most popular areas in the room, except perhaps for the snack table!

It is wonderful early on in the year when the children are exploring the kinder, you and themselves. They can just go for it!

We like to have plenty of supplies such as drawing, sticking and cutting implements …

along with loads of paper, card and envelopes.

Tubs of stuff they can access themselves such as recycled goodies, straws, pop sticks, boxes (we tend to save all our boxes from home during the break to give us a head start), pipe cleaners etc.

Sometimes their creations go home and other times they are just recycled back – they are often not so fussed at this stage about the finished product.

We kept the easels up a bit longer and changed the materials.

We added Christmas stamps, drawing implements, sequins and glue.

We love seeing what the children will come up with …

and as usual …

they didn’t let us down!

We have heaps of colorful bottle tops from juice and milk bottles …

so we pulled them out to make Christmas fridge magnets.

Children can’t get enough of glitz so with the bottle tops we popped out sequins and stars.

Add a big swoosh of P.V.A. glue …

decorate, decorate, decorate …

a magnet on the back …

and voila! Some pretty nifty Christmas fridge magnets!

We found a great science activity through Jenny’s “Let the children play” Facebook page, who picked it up from another great blog “Almost Unschoolers“.“

We needed a block of wood, a peg, a pop stick, a bottle top and something that we wanted to let fly!

We brought out the trusty glue gun as we wanted instant stickability.

Actually it was our swanky new cordless glue gun!

The children glued the peg onto the wood …

taking care not to touch the hot glue.

Next the pop stick went on top of the peg to extend the length of the catapult.

Another dob of glue …

and a bottle top or cardboard cylinder was glued on for a holder.

We found the bottle tops flicked off but the cardboard cylinders held tight …

then off they went!

This first day many of the children were only concerned with which one flew the furthest …

until they discovered …

just how high …

they could make them travel!

It was all to do with physics!

The next day we gave them a bit of a challenge by setting up containers for them to aim their missiles into.

This time instead of going all out …

they had to modify the thrust of the catapult so that the missiles only went a certain short distance.

Many children rose to the challenge and some were there for a long time honing their skills.

We heard some great counting down “10, 9, 8, 7 ….” and some serious score keeping, “I’ve got it in eight times now!”

Simple but fun …

science and maths in action!

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!