We honestly get a real buzz when we receive comments or photos from people who have used our ideas.

So imagine our delight when we turned up at Chifley Preschool in the ACT recently, to see that they had recreated our miniature houses …

bead people …

and tree house, seen here covered in aluminium foil, being used as a space station!

WOW! … So humbling!

Our ‘wheelies’ are one of our most popular pieces of play equipment in our outdoor environment …

and are used by the children every single day!

A favourite way the children like to use them …

is as motor bikes.

Motor bike play leads to the creation of some very interesting tracks  …

and jumps made from our large wooden blocks …

where the children like to show off  …

their amazing stunts and tricks!

Not only is this great for improving their gross motor skills …

but when they are this engaged …

we see some lovely social  …

and cooperative play …

and you know how much we LOVE that!

The children very much enjoyed last week’s ping pong ball painting, moving the balls with straws, but if you remember …

they struggled to blow them when covered in paint. So we decided to let them have some blowing practice combined with some healthy competition.

We set up a table (the old faithful with the edge around it) with a race track, straws and cottonwool balls. The idea was to race the balls to the end only using blowing power.

Mostly two children would wander over and have a go … rarely did one want to have a shot by themselves.

A couple of children were keen to race ping pong balls but they kept crossing over into each others lane, so we set up some blocks to divide the table.

Now that was a lot of fun … and very challenging!

Then, the children moved the blocks around to make an obstacle course … more challenging still!

Three boys moved the blocks to create their own game which involved bouncing a ping pong ball over the blocks to score goals by landing in Joshua’s hat …

and score goals they did … nice shot Ben!

Next we used Teacher Tom‘s idea and set up a maze.

The wonderful shapes of the blocks meant we could create walls, gates and arches for the balls to travel through.

Some children used straws to blow the balls through the course as well as using them like mini golf clubs …

while others scavenged small pieces of dowel from the invention table to use as mini bats.

The children challenge each other to move the balls all the way through the course to the black ‘finish’ dot!

By the end of the day however …

the maze had  … run it’s course … and taken a new direction altogether!

We noticed the balls still featured in the new play … then again with all those lovely round shapes to play with why would they not!

When our pre-kinder children arrived the next morning we set up a simpler maze for them to follow…

and using the dowel rods as bats, they had just as much fun and enjoyed the challenge as much as the older children did.

And like the older children, they too enjoying moving the blocks around to create new paths to follow!

::: This very simple activity provided many wonderful opportunities to lay down the foundations for some very important and valuable life skills for our children today … it’s true … it did!  Apart from physical development these included: verbal and physical communication, sharing (space, time and equipment), turn taking, teamwork, co-operation, negotiating skills, hand eye co-ordination, patience, language (including positional language) and imagination all the while covering maths, science and literature … all through play … and all in kindergarten!

So next time your child comes home empty handed, don’t say “didn’t you do anything today” because chances are, they did a heap, but all they know is that they played … they don’t yet realize how much they learned while they played … they simply played.  And that is how it is … and that is how it should be … and that is play based learning!

Be sure to visit Teacher Tom at http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com or through his link on the left hand side of the page.

Like many kindergartens and schools …

we have a supply of the old faithful indoor building blocks.

The children still use them nearly every day, but a couple of years ago we wanted to jazz up the block scene a bit and get in some new ones.

We didn’t want more of the same old thing, so managed to find these magnificent blocks through a company called ‘Mahkupu’ who have since changed their name to ‘Block Play’.

Due to a very supportive committee we were able to purchase the full set of ‘plantation timber’ blocks which included a huge variety of wonderfully shaped blocks which mix and match beautifully with each other …

as well as a set of people and animals, and a castle set.

We also designed the shelving unit and were able to get one of our cabinet maker dads to build it to our specifications …

so the children can have access to them at any time.

Not a day goes by that they aren’t taken out to play ..

The shapes, designs and beautiful natural coloured timber makes the look and feel of the blocks irresistible to the children.

It is a bit hard to see what this started out as, but what wonderful team work and imagination was used to get it to this!

The most used piece of equipment in our yard is quite possibly the big wooden blocks. They become rocket ships, boats, castles, gaols, homes, tunnels and roads.

On this occasion they became a restaurant.

Half of the sandpit seemed to be “delivered” to the restaurant via wheelbarrows on plates and trays, in buckets and cups.

This became the food, which was arranged temptingly on the blocks.

Some children set up a table with crockery and cutlery and a bunch of flowers.

One of the girls asked Donna to write up a menu and told her what food to include and what prices to add (Roast Dinner $100 – pretty expensive!) …

… then she and her friend added illustrations and wrote their own menu items!

This inspired the same children who did the chalk drawings on the concrete!

They wanted big easel paper stuck to the windows so they could write their own menus. This then led to writing of names and drawings and whatever they felt like. It was very exciting to see these children so engaged.