Dinosaur block construction!

We have had the Ipad blocks for about a year now (the free packaging that sandwiches each IPad when it is bought) and they are still as popular now as they were when we first introduced them. And with relatively few casualties despite them being trodden on from time to time! We have had them out every day this week and what I love is that the play and constructions change each time they are out :-)
On the first day the dinosaurs were in a multi-storey car park...in the next session they were at a theme park and mixed the long wooden blocks in with them to make slides. There has also been a castle this week and a mountain leading up to a volcano... Fab imaginative play for next to no money (well aside from someone having bought the IPads of course, but you get what I mean!!!)
I love the precision with which the blocks have been aligned in the top picture and the dinosaurs peeking out in between in the second!

Golden Time

We have Golden Time once a week in our setting (as part of our whole school behaviour policy) - this week I offered water painting....who would have thought that a large bucket of water, paint brushes and sponges would keep a group of 4-5 year olds occupied for such a long period of time!!! We had a ball! We started off by drawing pictures but actually, what was most fun, was throwing wet sponges at the stone pillars in our outside area and watching them splatter!!!!

Wax resist whale shark pictures

We started read the book 'Surprising Sharks' this week with the children and surprising it definitely is!! Did you know sharks only kill around 6 people a year but that we kill 100 million sharks each year? Sobering thought! Anyway, we then decided to draw pictures of sharks and one of the options was to use candles to draw with to create wax resist pictures. It turned out that the candles were too hard to work with for most of the children (because you had to press so hard to make it work) but they had good fun trying and it was a great exercise for those finger muscles. In the end, we gave them silver crayons and then went over their lines with a candle before they put on the ink. I love the fact that each picture is unique, focussing on the aspects that each child saw as most prominent. Some focussed on the spots on the whale sharks whilst others thought the pointy fins were more important and naturally there was one who just enjoyed the sensation of the crayon on the paper.... :-D

I left the same materials out this afternoon with complete freedom and was really impressed with the seahorses, crabs and starfish that were presented to me at the end of the afternoon. I think it is really important to offer materials that have been used for teaching independently again later - the best experimenting and discussions always seem to occur!!

Drawing the whale shark

Using black and blue watered down inks to colour.

Et voila!

The Enormous Turnip - root vegetable printing

As part of our work on Traditional Tales, we explored the tale of The Enormous Turnip and have been looking closely at root vegetables. We put out paint in trays with root vegetables and left the children to it :-) I loved the variations in the children’s pictures and processes. Some children arranged the veg in patterns, others covered the paper entirely and two children ignored the veg and went straight in with their hands :-D good fun was had by all!!

Huff and Puff pictures - The Three Little Pigs!!!

Recently, we looked at the story of The Three Little Pigs. We had heard lots of conversations about the wolf huffing and puffing (and seen it in the children’s play) so we set up a station where the children could make their own ‘Huff and Puff’ pictures. It went down a treat and some children several up to 40 minutes dropping watered down ink onto the paper and blowing it like the wolf :-) It is so nice to see children so highly engaged and the conversations about mixing colours that took place were a treat to hear! 

Spray painting…

Great fun (and fab for strengthening hand/finger muscles :-) ) but think we will be finding paint splattered items for a long time to come lol! All but two of my children chose to come and have a go throughout the day and every picture is different. One child deliberately placed her 3 sprays (each one in a different colour) whilst another sprayed until there was not a speck of white left on the paper :-) 

LIght box fun and story telling

I really like these glass nuggets - I got them at a discount store for very little money and the children haven’t stopped playing with them! I put them out next to the light box along with a basket of people. One of my EAL speakers then called me over to tell me the story of the people playing in the swimming pool at their party - great for confidence building and language development!