Making Circles!!

We moved the small natural materials from the inside construction area to the outside area this week. 

 These 3 children spent half an hour working together, talking about which layer should go next and who was going to do what.

The wooden 'spikes' were then added as hair for this extra-terrestrial character!!! :-D I love children's imaginations!

Getting ready for September - Back to school!

It's the holidays and you are enjoying walking along a shopping street or through a mall, relaxing and making the most of being out and about during the day...then something catches your eye and you see the perfect item....for an area of your classroom or that you know the children will just love... Know the feeling?! It's the time of the year where I actually have the most time to really reflect and so is often when I am able to come up with some of my more creative ideas and I would not swap it for the world. Today I was in a cute kitchen/garden store with lots of natural wooden products and came across this little stash - am very pleased! The gorgeous toadstools (cork stoppers for wine!) are just right to go with the waldorf playmats I blogged about a few weeks back. I am especially pleased with the scoops to complement our pincers that we already have - great for promoting fine motor skills in a playful way :-) And the best bit was that they didn't cost the bank :-D Will follow up with another post showing them in use once school is underway!

Building in circles!

My class often choose to play with the wooden blocks and the number of different ways they come up with to use them never ceases to amaze me. Last week, I simply offered them on top of one of our tuff spots and placed a single triangular brick in the middle as an invitation to continue. After nearly 2 hours of play (returning to it after short breaks each time), a group of 4/5 children had created an amazing circular city of symmetry. They worked together to ensure they didn't leave any bits out of their pattern and it was a pleasure to listen to their conversations as they worked - I love this time of year when the children are able to put all their creativity, sharing and team working skills together to create something fabulous. Sadly I didn't get a photo of the completely finished build but the process was the most important part and I was lucky to watch it from start to finish :-)

Homemade Dancing Rings!

Have you seen those beautiful ribbon rings that you can buy? Gorgeous but on the pricey side....

Soooo....we had a go at making our own today! They definitely will not last as long but we had a blast making them and even more fun using them outside - running with them, throwing them like parachutes, playing tag with them etc etc!!!

We used some plastic wheels from our DT area that had been around for a while and threaded them with thin ribbon before setting them out for the kids to experiment threading with....

It was also great for fine motor practice - we encouraged the children to have a go at tying their own strips of crepe paper - and they were so proud of themselves when they achieved it!