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!

Sand is so wonderful for all sorts of play and what better than the basis for imaginative play?

In the past we used it many times in our kindergarten with cars, Australian animals, dinosaurs, jungle animals and so on.

We had it outside in a clam shell (actually trying to dry it off in the sun for a sifting activity) and the children thought it would be a good spot to set up a bush scene for their trucks and boats.

How simple – some rocks, pinecones, sticks …

parsley wrenched from the herb garden and other plant bits and pieces.

The joy of the clam shell is that everything in it is within easy reach for all participants!

We’ve mentioned before how we believe there can never be too many imaginative play areas going on at once around our kinder.

Providing natural and sensory materials including fabrics, logs and rocks, seed pods, pebbles, sand and plants is really all you need to create an irresistible play space.

Be it horses, or any other kind of animals …

all you need is to provide the props with a little bit of ‘irresistible’ thrown in and the children will do the rest.

Dinosaur set ups are one of those imaginative play spaces you could have going all year round … both inside and out!

We find there is always somebody wanting to play with dinosaurs so luckily we have bucket loads of them …

big …

medium …

small …

even skeletal!

indoors …

outdoors …

everywhere dinosaurs!

We like to add plenty of natural material like textured fabrics, tanbark and sand, logs, twigs, rocks, stones and pebbles along with our irresistible lifelike tree fern and grass plants for some lovely colour…

You can even add salt to create a dinosaur haven!

You can buy some wonderful props quite inexpensively if you look around.

These gorgeous lizards are available from toy shops and look very lifelike.

We like to use them both indoors and outdoors …

as they are extremely solid.

We love to create natural play spaces for them …

with lots of earthy and sensory materials.

They really are irresistible …

and a good size …

with delightful features …

encouraging lots of imaginative play.

Resulting in wonderful play based learning!

Imaginative play doesn’t need to be fancy, expensive or difficult to set up!

The discount shops are great for buying basic props very cheaply.

Here we have some quite large plastic insects which the children really enjoy playing with. 

They are a great size …

and they look so life like!

By making available natural materials like a variety of logs, pebbles, rocks and plants, imaginative play simply takes off!

With the addition of earthy coloured fabrics, the environment looks very effective and to the children it is irresistible fun!

We were trawling the discount shops again …

when we found these really cute mice  …

and cats …

and dogs.

We popped them out with some wooden building blocks …

and assorted fabrics,

along with logs and rocks.

The children had such fun with them mixing and matching our old and newer style wooden blocks into the play.

Once again the top of the block trolley was used, which as we’ve said many times before is a perfect platform for play.

It also means the children can access extra blocks and supplies.

You really don’t need fancy equipment  to make play fun, just children and their wonderful imaginations!

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!

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!