Remembrance Day Tuff Tray

I am over the moon to be sharing this Tuff Tray with you today inspired by Remembrance Day. 

You will now be seeing people selling poppies in the shops. They will appear around the streets as councils proudly attach them to lamp posts. Children will see people wearing them on their clothes. They may even spot some on the front of cars! 

It's a lovely way to share with children how we remember and say thank you to the brave soldiers who work very hard to help keep the world we live in safer for us all. You might be able to dig out some photographs of your relatives who are uniformed up and share with them any stories you may recall.

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Remembrance Day has been observed since the First World War and is a time we reflect and remember the people who have died in line of duty. You know your children better than anyone. This is definitely a subject that needs to be approached and explained with care to some children. My daughter for example - because of her age and her sensitive nature we have spoken lots about the Poppies she sees on sale. We have spoken about why people wear poppies - to remember all the brave people who have worked hard to help make our world a safer place to live. 

We have visited a museum to see some of the uniforms people have worn over the years and she even got the opportunity to dress up herself - which she liked. 

We have also visited a place called Avoncroft Museum where she has been inside an Air Raid shelter and listened to the sirens they used to sound to warm people they needed to turn off the lights and gather their families to stay safe in the shelter. 

History is very important. The world we live in today is because of events that have happened previously. Shortly we will be stopping for 2 minutes silents - but do your children fully understand why we do this? 

Lets take a look at this wonderful play invitation:

This was a subject I did want to cover anyway but after a recent visit to the museum, one of the children became very interested in soldiers. I love how play set ups come together like this. 

I added a handful of wonderful stories to this play invitation - 

The Red Poppy - A book set in World War 1 with stunning illustrations. The book tells the story of two soldiers that are injured and find themselves in the same trench. With the help of a war dog and beautiful red poppy, the once enemies become allies as they hope for survival.

The Little Hen and the Great War - A beautiful story of a very unexpected friendship amongst the midst of a great war. A soldier finds a skinny red hen whilst fighting in the war in France. He takes good care of the hen and shares his rations with her. The other soldiers make fun of him. Before long, the hen begins to lay eggs giving the soldiers a source of food. They begin to realise that survival and hope are possible after all. 

Labels I found by doing a quick online search. I laminated them and stuck them to the back of wooden blocks so they would stand upright. 

The grass Tuff Tray mat is homemade. I purchased the lino fabric from Dunelm Mill and cut it to size to sit perfectly within the tray. We have used it many times as it does tend to fit many of our play set ups.

The air raid shelters are pig sty's that came in an Early Learning Centre small world toy. They were perfect for this tray. I added some battery operated tea lights. It gave us the opportunity to discuss how people would often have to sleep down in the shelters and also how dark it would have been down there even in the day time. I have children who love switches, so its a safe and easy opportunity for them to enjoy turning them on and off too.

The vase is a plastic fish bowl that I brought from the pound shop and the poppies were from Amazon. The soldiers were fabulous dotted around and the children enjoyed using them to act out the imaginative play scenarios. Just standing back and observing them play gave me the knowledge I needed to know what the children knew already. I used this observation to build on what I taught them afterwards.

The foliage is from IKEA.

The little brown clay holders I managed to find on a charity shop haule. I popped some playdoh inside to push in the poppies so they would stand up.