invitation to play

Days 265 – 271 of Project 365

September 28, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 20 Comments

265-271 of 365

265. Country Kids (We revisited Cefn Onn Park with my brother and his family. My niece and sister-in-law had never been there before and were amazed by it. The children have such great fun together, as soon as we arrived they headed up a tree, closely followed by walking up the stream. They get on so well together, it's really heart-warming to see the next generation together.)

266. Conkers (This week I've been making the effort to set up a play opportunity for The Boy after school, he enjoyed last week's invitation to play so much, and it gave us that quality time together.)

267. Tiddlywinks (On Saturday The Boy begged me to buy some tiddlywinks, we trawled the toy shops to no avail and so I had to order them from Amazon. He was over the moon when they arrived today and he could play them.)

268. Squidgy (He absolutely loved sorting out these pom-poms using the tray and large tweezers. Better still was squeaking them in his ear!)

269. Up (Another invitation to play for The Boy, I was taking an overhead shot and meant to get it of the table but accidentally snapped my son instead. Rather glad I did now!)

270. Swing (The only photo this week taken on my phone, more importantly the only one not taken on manual! We had to battle spiders' webs to get to the garden, I hate this time of year for that!)

271. Bare (We went into Cardiff today to buy some Autumn/Winter boots for The Boy, and called into the Cardiff Country Fayre afterwards. I'd debated trying to get some press tickets earlier in the week for it, but decided in the end that I didn't have time for a blog-post so we paid. I'm rather pleased we came to that conclusion as I'd struggle with a post on an event which isn't really our type of thing. The Boy enjoyed climbing on the tractors and seeing the animals, but we ended up spending 45 minutes looking for conkers instead!)

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Days 258 – 264 of Project 365

September 21, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 21 Comments

258-264 of 365

258. Water (The Boy has only just started being able to cope with water on his face in the bath or shower, today he asked if he could lay back in it and found it hilarious. I just hope this isn't the start of his constant ear infections and glue ear in Winter!)

259. Pennies (The Boy asked if he could count money when he came in from school, so we got down the large Whisky jar and he sorted 1p, 2p and 5p coins into piles before counting the pennies into piles of ten.)

260. Mirror (I set up an invitation to play for The Boy when he came home from school, which he found really therapeutic. The mirror on the table gave a wonderful light for playing in, really illuminating his face. He only once noticed himself in it, and the delight on his face was brilliant.)

261. Sparko (It's Wednesday. That means a sleeping Boy photo. I can never have enough of these so it's ok by me!)

262. Splash (An after-school trip to the local nature reserve to feed the swans, and splash in puddles in new wellies. Only the wellies were too big and then soon fell off when The Boy tried kicking water from the puddle!)

263. A Drop In The Ocean (Rather than go to the MADs in London, I chose to stay at home with my family, for various reasons. I didn't want to sit at home and while away the evening on twitter, so we went for a chippy dinner down the beach before nan babysat The Boy, and I went out to the cinema with my husband. This photo of my thoughtful little boy was taken on the steps down to the beach with the rapidly rising tide approaching. The awards are just one night and a minor moment, when compared with the rest of our lives and The Boy's happiness.)

264. Bare (I've felt groggy all day, like the morning after but without the night before. I didn't sleep well because I was beating myself having not won the MADs again, which I now realise is completely ridiculous; it's just a lump of glass! However, after hanging around all morning for a new class-mate's birthday party, we then went to practise bike-riding in the park. As we cycled around, we found an enormous horse chestnut tree ladened with conkers, which were dropping from it rapidly. When I say the conkers were dropping, I don't mean the cases with conkers in; I actually mean the conkers. There was a squirrel sat at the top, having a feast in the canopy as he ripped open the cases and threw them down, stripped the conkers and dropped the remnants too. Luckily The Boy still had his cycle helmet on as he had a few drop on his head!)

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Days 153-159 of Project 365

June 8, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 28 Comments

153-159 of 365

153. Peek-a-boo! (This is my favourite photo of the week. We went to Abbotsbury Swannery on the way home from holiday and The Boy was fascinated by the cygnets, some of which had hatched the day before. I could have included a photo of a cute and fluffy cygnet, instead it's this one of The Boy climbing in a tunnel of trees which I adore.)

154. Alien (I set up an invitation to play for him with playdough, feathers, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, matchsticks and lolly sticks and he created this fab alien.)

155. Spiderman! (We dropped my niece's present over for her birthday and The Boy was desperate to play in their 170 foot garden which has this fabulous spider's web climbing net.)

156. Mr. Bloom (Today we planted our seeds for the Britmums challenge: Kids Grow Wild with MoneySupermarket. The Boy hasn't quite got the concept of watering in moderation.)

157. Waterbaby? (I wish he was a waterbaby; his constant ear infections from November to March every year mean that he rarely goes swimming apart from in the Summer. This past Winter he had glue ear in both ears, with 5% reduction in hearing in his right ear and slightly more in his left. We were told by the doctor not to allow water into his ears and so he hasn't been since last September. Today we decided to give it a go, bought him some new armbands and a noodle-thing, and he absolutely loved it. He even managed to use both to try out backstroke legs, and was so confident in the water he went down the infants slide backwards. Think we'll be going weekly from now on.)

158. Fortress (After work, we decided to pop to Barry Island for some sandcastle building and I ended up building The Boy a small defense wall with a pit to sit in. I think we may have put the defenses on the wrong side though looking at the stormy skies behind?)

159. Squint (We popped over to Nana and Grandad's this afternoon, in between shopping and The Boy has great fun with his cousin and the playdough. Not exciting, just every day life!.)

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Small World: Building Site

May 15, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 15 Comments

Since discovering how good our Step2 water table is as a centre for Small World play, I've been keen to come up with different scenarios to stimulate his imaginative play. Using Happyland style toys has always been difficult for him, as it is for many other children. Contrary to popular belief children don't always know how to play, especially with imaginative toys promoting role-play; they do need guidance to show how they can re-enact situations they encounter. And likewise the benefits of Small World play are massive as it allows them to work through stories from books, real-life events or the concepts on a television programme for example.

When I set out a Small World scene, I usually have the characters doing something which prompts The Boy to continue their actions and provides a play opportunity straight away. I allow him to play freely for a short amount of time first of all before stepping in and (teacher talk now) 'facilitating his play', gently guiding the direction and providing him with scenarios to process. We play together for another five-ten minutes and then I step back and let him play freely.

He's still not great at engaging to be honest, and that might just be because he isn't geared towards imaginative play at the moment. However, I'm not going to stop providing him with the opportunities and encouraging him.

Small World: Building Site

I have used the Happyland construction site we've had for some time, along with a few other diggers that we have, and placed the crane on the lower level. I poured sand all around the bottom to hide the plastic base, then put sand on the upper level and a pile of gravel (this is actually spare fishtank gravel) in a corner to be moved by the diggers. I placed the various play figures and vehicles around the table, engaging each on in an action.

Small World Building Site

He had great fun with this and spent ages scooping up the gravel, pouring it into the back of a vehicle and then transferring this down to the crane.

In total this activity took ten minutes to set up, and provided hours of fun.

Car Painting & Small-World Car Wash

April 16, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 21 Comments

The Boy loves painting and I try often to vary the equipment I give him so that he is able to experience the way that paint works and how it can be manipulated. We've used the traditional brushes, delved into printing with sponges and making our own tile prints, and about a month ago I decided to see what he thought of using his little Hot Wheels cars to make patterns.

To prepare for some free painting play, I:

put out three dishes out for him with green, yellow and blue paint in,
gave him a variety of different small world vehicle,
taped down an eight foot length of paper onto the kitchen floor.

We had great fun investigating the different tyre tracks on each vehicle, testing to see which was the most effective coloured paint for getting distinct tyre prints onto the paper, and even bordered into some science when we realised that the heavier vehicle were more effective at leaving tyre patterns. The Boy loved looking to see how the wet paints were crossing over and mixing to create new shades of green, etc. In total we spent about an hour zooming the cars back and for; the artwork is still taped to my kitchen wall because I love the colours in it so much.

Painting with toy cars

I'd already thought about the fact that I didn't want to be spending ages scouring his car afterwards, and had enlisted the help of some basic cleaning sponges and his Step2 water table to create a car wash for him. One of the simplest activities that he likes to do is go to the car wash and see the coloured foam squirt all over the car before various brushes, rollers and sponge strips clean the car.

I decided to recreate this using:

cheap shaving foam
a few drops of food colouring
Blu-Tack
double-sided tape
sponge scourers
round plastic scourers
a thin sponge wipe (which I cut long strips into to create the drying and buffing curtainat the end of the car wash, we call them the 'kisses')
Playmobil figures

The Step2 water table we have has two different levels with a slope connecting them. I filled the top level with shaving foam and a few drops of food colouring to create the foam of a car wash. Near to the entrance of the slope to the lower level I Blu-tacked some round plastic scourers, and at the top of the sponge I placed some sponge scourers; both designed to rub the dirt off. At the bottom of the slope I hung the sponge wipe 'curtain'. The lower level of the table was filled with water to rinse the cars off.

I placed a few of his Playmobil figures at strategic points with small sponges in their hands and invited him to clean his paint-laden cars off.

Small World car wash

The Boy happily played with his car wash for well over another hour, in fact he got his cars covered in paint repeatedly so he could wash them all off again. Water play is always such fun but sometimes he gets bored when it lacks focus. He also won't go anywhere near messy play if I present it to him as a dedicated messy play activity. However, the format of the car wash enabled him to experience both messy play and then wash the shaving foam off in the water if it became too much for him to bear.

Car Painting & Small World Car Wash

Pipecleaner Space Hat

March 13, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 14 Comments

I have never understood the appeal of pipecleaners. They bend and make cool shapes, but for a pre-schooler I've always thought they were a little pointless and hard work.

And then I discovered (via Pinterest) a few activities which suggest that they can be used as a tool in threading and beading exercises.

I set out a tray of materials for The Boy as an invitation to explore and play.

We used:

metallic coloured pipe cleaners
buttons of various sizes
maxi Hama beads
a metal sieve
silver confetti strands

The pipecleaners are much easier to use for threading than a shoelace as they stay rigid and don't flop over while trying to fit the beads onto the end. This also makes them easier to shape when creating a design. One more bonus is that the metallic fibres covering the wire enable beads to stay in place and not slip down to the end.

We started by poking the wire end into the sieve and bending it over 'inside' to prevent it from being pulled out. Then The Boy was keen to have a mismatch of buttons and Hama beads on the pipecleaners, alternating and contrasting the design. Buttons that have multiple holes are really useful to thread two pipecleaners through. To ensure the buttons and beads didn't fall off, we tucked the loose end back into the sieve and bent the end over again.

Threading with pipecleaners

Threading is an excellent activity for pre-school children as it helps to develop fine motor skills, hand to eye co-ordination and the pincer grip; all of which are needed to develop pre-writing skills. Pipecleaners are a very useful tool for threading because of their rigidity.

And it's great fun too!

Gardening Play Table

February 25, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 27 Comments

Before The Boy was born, I was a keen gardener (albeit slightly lazy on the maintenance side) and I'd achieve good results. Unfortunately I haven't grown any vegetables in three years now, but this is the year to change this as The Boy is so interested in where fruit and vegetables come from and how they grow. Understanding 'the world around us' is a part of the Early Years Foundation Stage framework and I'm keen to give him activities for contextual and experiential learning as much as possible.

With this in mind, and because it was freezing and I didn't want to stand in the garden in 1°C, I set up a gardening play table for him in his seconded water table.

We used:

seeds (carrot and peas)
soil
plastic pots (I've used the degradable compost pots before but they never seem to work very well and these are reusable)
a range of tools (I always provide a range of equipment whatever activity so that he learns which are the best tools for the job)
paper markers and a pencil (writing opportunities)

children's gardening

He was so keen to get to work and plant the seeds; we had a huge discussion about the differences between a carrot and a pea seed, why the carrot seeds didn't look like a carrot when the pea seed looked like a pea, how the plant would grown, where the vegetable would grow and how big they would be. I can't wait to see his face when the pods start to grow on the pea plants. I've always found pea plants quite high maintainence for very little result, but the look on a child's face when they pop open a pod and see the peas nestled inside is worth it.

One of the things that I was very pleased with was seeing him write the labels for the seeds. I wrote one out so he could see how to shape the letters, but as he hasn't practised many letters outside of his name before I wasn't sure he'd manage it. He studied how I wrote the letters, followed my instructions and wrote them really well. This is a great excuse to get some pre-literacy mark-making practise in without him even realising!

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