We find that the children often want to revisit tattooed rocks. They just love doing it!

They tattooed some quite big ones recently and started playing games with them.

We were at Donna’s house where there is a staircase and they wanted to play a game incorporating the stairs – probably just an excuse to go up and down them!

We found some counters, wrote the numbers 1, 2 and 3 on them and popped them into a bag.

The children reached in, pulled out a counter and decided that whatever the number was …

that was how many stairs the rocks could go up …

until all the stairs had a rock on them.

The best part of the game was, all the rules were made up by them!

When they came back down the other way, whatever the number was, was how many rocks were put back into the bowl at the bottom.

Making up their own rules meant they could change them as they went along, but everyone was happy, including we adults who loved the number recognition and one to one correspondence which occurred naturally in their play.

Following on from this made up game the children pulled out a board game which we had picked up on a recent visit to Resource Rescue, but we hadn’t yet got around to reading the rules.

Once again though, they said they didn’t need the rules …

“We just want to play!”

Now we reckon there’s a lesson in that little statement for all of us!

A few days ago we came across this Hot Rocks post by Marghanita through the Childhood 101 Playopedia link up.  It reminded us of the melted crayon drawings we did last year.

Being a long weekend here in Victoria, Donna is holidaying at Jamieson up in the high country of Victoria with her extended family, which includes her young nieces and nephew.

Yesterday while walking along the banks of the Jamieson river, the children collected up a basketful of beautiful river rocks.

Donna thought this would be a great opportunity to give the ‘Hot Rocks’ a try. After showing the children the video from the link they agreed.

The rocks were placed inside a small toaster oven with the temperature set to 150 oC, for about 10 minutes.

They were a little too warm to handle when they first came out of the oven but it only took a minute or two for them to cool down to a safe, manegable temperature.

Using wax crayons they decorated the rocks.

As the rocks were warm …

the crayons melted and glided over them with ease.

While the winter weather here is Victoria is amazingly beautiful, the air is still very fresh and crisp.

Because of this the children delighted in handling the warm rocks outside in the cool winter sunshine.

It wasn’t long before they came up with their own ideas for decorating the rocks.

These included drawing on cold rocks.

Shaving the crayons with a bread and butter knife …

as well as a pencil sharpener …

and chopping the crayons into chucks.

All the chunks and shaving went on top of the cold rocks to be melted in the oven.

They looked so beautiful!

These techniques worked brilliantly!

Once melted and cooled …

the wax was smooth and solid … really lovely to feel

Each one was so unique!

Once again the children showed us that they really do have the best ideas!

We loved pet rocks. We loved rock sculptures. We loved rock bugs.

So we thought … why not decorate rocks with stickers and tattoos?

We grabbed a bag of those large rocks from Bunnings that you put on paths or around plants and found a variety of great tattoos that the children like to plaster up and down their arms.

They are easy to apply, naturally.

Just add water …

place on skin … or rock!

Press down for a while …

and carefully slip off backing paper.

Small stickers seem to work equally well on these shiny rocks …

and we feel that they will make a beautiful addition to our imaginative play 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!

A few children were playing in the Hush Garden recently and brought some small flat stones up to the platform cubby …

to make into lady bugs.

They had such fun creating them, we felt that rather than empty the Hush Garden of all its small stones …

we’d buy a bag of washed river pebbles for them to use.

We talked with the class about what the original group had done and tossed around different ideas about what they could make.

Mostly they stuck with the bug idea …

but not all did and they came up with some great alternatives.

Our children loved doing it so much …

we went through a 2kg bag of stones  …

in no time at all!

Some children lovingly made creatures for every person in their family!

while others made just one very special friend.

Of course once the 2kg bag was all used up …

they were back to raiding the Hush Garden again!

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!

We have a television show here in Oz called “Better Homes and Gardens” and they feature a vet called Dr Harry.  He recently visited our friend Jenny from “Let the Children Play” to see their retro pets – ants and sea monkeys. Dr Harry also went out into the surrounding bush and found some small rocks which he and the children made into pet rocks with the addition of eyes.

As some of our children had seen this particular program, they were keen to have a go themselves.

We added lots of other bits and pieces too …

so they could make their rocks into birds, reptiles or perhaps woolly sheep – whatever they wanted.

They made some very interesting ‘pets’ and were very excited to be taking them to their new (better?) homes and gardens.

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!

We have been dreaming of a dry creek bed in our Hush Garden for a very long time!

Jenny's children off to the creek

Then last month, Jenny over at “Let the children Play“, posted about the creek in the bush beside her kindergarten which she ventures into at times with the children, where they spend enjoyable hours playing in the water.

Jenny's children playing with their trucks in the creek

Check it out here, it’s wonderful! That post was all the inspiration we needed to stop thinking about our plans of a dry creek bed and to start putting our thoughts into action!

On the last day of term Sherry and the children from Purple Group cleared as much tanbark as they could from the Hush Garden in order to present us with a blank canvas to work with as the ground cover was looking pretty sad due to the fact the tanbark breaks down so quickly. Don’t you just love the brooms at work!!! At this point in time we weren’t seriously thinking of the creek idea but rather we wanted to purchase some more native plants to jazz the place up a bit and perhaps include a winding gravel path or two. We just knew it was time to begin ‘phase two’ of the garden improvement.

Of course we still had the beautiful large rocks and delightful weeping flowering gum tree and small native plants positioned in the center, but the pavers were lifted and the umbrella removed along with some logs and a couple of native grass plants which we planned on transplanting somewhere else.

dry creek bed

After reading Jenny’s post on the creek running through the beautiful Australian bush beside her kinder, and catching up with each other in the holidays we discussed exactly what it is we wanted to do and decided that  … “ we wanted Jenny’s creek“.  We could do this! Okay we wouldn’t have a real creek, but we could put our dry creek bed project into action if we put our minds to it … so put our minds to it we did!

Tom's water pump

At this stage Donna hadn’t told Sherry about the water pump idea she had picked up from Teacher Tom (although she had mentioned it to Tom who had posted some water pump maintenance tips on his blog for her) …but that would wait for now. First things first … baby steps, baby steps and all that jazz!!

We spent a morning in the holidays sourcing plants and trees, rocks and pebbles and set to work on the ground work of our ‘dry creek bed’.

We positioned heavy rocks which the children would not be able to help us with to create a raised garden bed for the new gum trees. We then ordered, from our local garden supplier, a delivery of Lilydale toppings for the paths and Tuscan screenings to line the creek bed along with a selection of river rocks, and marked out a plan for the creek bed.

We decided where the native grasses should be placed for best effect, taking into account that we wanted them to look like they had grown beside the creek naturally, but at the same time we didn’t want them to obstruct the children’s play. Then we used the mosaic pavers to mark out the ‘flow’ of the creek.

The three dwarf gum trees we purchased to go in the new raised garden bed would compliment the existing weeping gum beautifully and grow to create shade and interest at the top end of the garden.

We aren’t very good at following plans on paper so we really just stepped things out and decided that if it looked right … and felt right … then we’d go with it. When we stood back and had a look. We knew it would work  … so we were ready to begin.

Naturally we want the children involved as much as possible but knowing that the first week back at kinder was scheduled to be wet, (yes we know you can’t trust the weather bureau these days, but we had to be prepared) and the tanbark Sherry had raked away had exposed copious amounts of dirt,  we made an executive decision to put down a layer of Lilydale toppings before the children arrived in order to prevent too much mud being stirred up by what we knew would be the feet of very eager helpers.

dry creek bed

It was then that Jenny posted this wonderful article on her site.  We couldn’t believe our luck or her timing.

dry creek bed

Looking at the pictures of dry creek beds she had put up has reinforced in our minds that this project is right on target to be successful.

Now the children have returned from holidays …  the real fun can begin!

To be continued …

Dry creek bed images are from “Tessa Rose Playspace and Landscape Designs“