Playdough and cocktail sticks

playdough cocktail sticks
Many of the play ideas I post here happen as a result of my children taking some everyday materials and experimenting. Having a well stocked making box (which really doesn’t mean lots of expensive art materials) and permission to help themselves to some of our kitchen supplies often leads to all sorts of creativity and learning. Today’s post is an example of how a fusion of two materials can produce lots of thinking about maths, dimensions, construction, creativity, roleplay and of course plenty of fun.

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Painted Christmas wreath

painted Christmas wreath
The children had so much fun making this painted Christmas wreath. I like the mix of the traditional decoration with the vibrant colours the kids chose. Here’s how they made it.

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Thinking It Through: Sorting Fun

We’re joined by Christie from Childhood101 today, with a great post about sorting fun. I hope you enjoy her ideas.

“Pleasure in arranging things – whether lining up pebbles or tiny toys in a row, or arranging lines, shapes and colours on a sheet of paper – is part of children’s lives, part of the human desire for visual order.”

~Ursula Kolbe, It’s Not A Bird Yet: The Drama of Drawing (2005)

My daughter loves to sort and organise; from collecting small, natural objects on our daily walks at 18 months of age and sorting strips of fabric two months later, to arranging fairy stones at play or helping to sort the laundry as a three year old. At various times we have sorted by colour, size, texture, shape and number. Always in a spontaneous, fun and playful manner. Read more »

Marvellous marbles: how to make a marble run

how to make a marble run junk modelIt seems fitting after yesterday’s inauguration of the Junk Model Hall of Fame that today’s post is about how to make a marble run from – you guessed it – junk!

We always have a well stocked making box ready to create with but it was a bag of colourful marbles that we found in a charity shop that were the inspiration for this marble run. It’s all B’s creation and she had to use lots of problem solving and adaptations a she went along, to make a marble run that would be fun to play with. Here’s how she made it.

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Eat some numbers: Fruit cocktail maths

preschool maths ideas

Maths activities for preschoolers work best when they are fun (of course!) and practical – using real objects the children can feel, rather than abstract numbers on a worksheet.

Try this fruit cocktail maths activity for some tasty number practice.

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Sunflower Challenge 2011

sunflower challenge 2

Today’s the Day!

If you’ve been growing sunflowers with us as part of the Compton Hospice Sunflower Challenge you need to measure your sunflowers today. There are fabulous prizes on offer for the tallest bloom, so measure up and contact Compton with your vital statistics.

Our tallest is currently 1m 65cm. They got up to 2m 47cm last year, so there’s plenty more growing to be done. How tall are yours?

Sunflower Festival

If you’ve been enjoying growing sunflowers (whether you’re joining in the official challenge or not) and have a sunflower-themed play idea to share with us – we would love to see them. Please add a link to the Linky at the end of this post. We’ve shared some ideas for art, science and math in our Sunflower Activities ebook, and here’s one more idea for sunflower fun.

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