With the boys taking a real interest in numbers and loving Nursery Rhymes - today we've gone for a bit of sensory play combining both. Now the warmer weather is here we are loving lots of messy/sensory play out in the garden.
Soapy Mark Marking
Frozen Water Beads
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It took me around 10 minutes to gather the materials and get the play invitation set up.
I had picked the ducks up in a set of 8 from The Works for just £2.50. It was them that inspired this activity.
I wanted to add some interesting textures to the tray along with contrasting colours. For greenery I used split peas and crepe paper torn into strips. I added some natural items that I had won in a giveaway on Instagram last year.
The wooden numbers have been used lots in our play set ups. I added numbers to 8 as there were 8 ducks in the tray. Although the boys can recognise numbers to 10 now I will still be adding them to our activities as we explore more on quantities.
As mentioned above the ducks were from The Works and are currently in stock. I added some scrabble letters to the tray. Something else I want to start to introduce to the boys is what their names look like. We shall introduce letters by starting to look at the letters in their names.
I not only added the initial letters for their names I added a couple more for items that were in the tray. Although it is better to stick to lower case letters. Its something I have added to my to do lise - to source lower case letters.
What you are all dying to know I'm sure is what the blue media is........
It's not the first time we have used this in our play set ups. Adding water the media grows before your very eyes and is ready to play with in just a few short minutes. You can create your own consistency that changes depending on how much water you add. I began by leaving it quite thick. Once they had had enough with this activity - I went on to add more water to create a very gooey water substance that grabbed their attention once more.
What I think is fabulous about this stuff is you can add another powder over the top once you have finished to turn it back to a liquid that is safe to pour down the drains!
I shall reveal what we used below -
Around the white tray that I purchased from Home Bargains for £12.99 I placed lots of 'tools' to explore the activity set up. There were nets, tweezers, spoons and scoops.
All of the tools were used during play. The spoons in particular were a real hit!
The activity started with lots of singing of the Nursery Rhyme - 5 Little Ducks. We spoke about the ducks, counted them and the boys started naming them after members of their friends and family.
Although their was a theme to this activity, I gave the boys the freedom to play. I didn't step in to keep them on topic. I allowed their imaginations to flow and from observing what they did next - I will now plan more activities along the lines of what they enjoyed doing.
They started to get really stuck in at this point. They were using their fingers to explore the different textures in the tray. They would excitedly shout out the colours and the numbers they were finding and as they picked the materials up they moved them aside to the black tray - leaving them with a blank canvas of an usual media that they had not come across before.
What would they go on to do next?
The spoons came to their hands as they began to work their magic. Lots of mixing and stirring took place as they shared with me their intentions of making pancakes and cakes.
The peas added to the texture and looked even more appealing to explore once they were all mixed.
'Thud' went the mixture as spoonfuls landed onto the black tray. They had an intentions and I watched on to see what they would do next. They took the numbers and made a cake with candles!
They sang Happy Birthday before cheering and taking it in turns to 'blow out the candles'.
But what is this mysterious media we have used?
It's Gellibaff
...... we couldn't recommend it anymore!
It's a wonderful sensory texture and they have a huge range of different medias that children will LOVE playing with!
Lets see this activity in action:
I always like to share an after shot. I like to share this message:
I get so many messages each week saying how disheartened they feel after spending time planning and setting up activities for them to be 'trashed'. This isn't trashed. This is what a successful activity looks like. An activity that has been enjoyed, explored. Learning has taken place here. Imagination has been ignited.
If an activity still looks similar to what it did when you set it up - it hasn't bee successful.
Embrace the change and focus on all that has been taken from this activity. Use what you have observed to plan future activities at home and in your settings.
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