Marble painting
We love marble painting. We love the crazy patterns you can make, we love the roly-poly fun and we love how vibrant the final paintings are. Marble painting is a good craft activity to try with children who usually prefer action play to something artistic – you might just find that this rolling-action appeals, when normal painting or drawing doesn’t.
If you have a group of children you can try this on a grand scale: go outside and have the children sit around a huge piece of paper. Add some blobs of paint around the perimeter of the paper and give the children some marbles. They can roll the marbles to each other across the paper and make a collaborative design.
For a smaller scale version at home, we find a roasting tray is a good size to fit an A4 piece of paper, and of course the raised edges of the tin help to contain the marble. Add a blob of paint and practise your co-ordination as you tilt the tray to roll the marble through the paint. What patterns can you make if you add different colours of paint, or roll 2 or 3 marbles at once?
This is a fun, creative activity to try just for the pleasure of crafting but it creates wonderful pictures you can use to make into something else too: bookmarks, greetings cards and postcards, gift tags? Come back tomorrow and see how we transformed our marble paintings into a mathematical display.
Role play builders
Playing outdoors in all weathers
I’m writing this at one o’clock in the afternoon and the sky is grey and the rain is tumbling down. It’s making me think about how the weather affects our play, and particularly I’m thinking about how much time we spend outdoors in autumn and winter. I don’t think there’s any question that playing outside is wonderful for children: the fresh air, the feeling of space, the sensory benefits of being in nature. I certainly know with my own two girls, and all the children I’ve looked after, that if we’re having a grumpy sort of day, getting outside – in the garden, park or just for a walk – most often is all that’s needed to lighten everyone’s mood.
But it’s getting colder now, and windy and rainy and dark. If you’re the type who is happy to be outside all the time in all weathers, I really do salute you. I however am naturally inclined to prefer a hot cup of coffee and a warm blanket inside! We do play outside everyday, whatever the weather, but there’s no denying we play outdoors less in winter – which I’m guessing is the same for lots of you? So, I’m resolving to put more thought into getting out there and planning on bringing you some posts over the next few months that inspire us to venture out. I’d also like to invite you to share your ideas too. The Play Academy carnival on Friday is open to any of your posts and I’d also love to hear from you if you’d like to write a guest post here. (On any play subject in fact, not just on playing outside. You can e-mail me cathy (at) nurturestore (dot) co (dot) uk if you have an idea you’d like to write about).
To start us off, my top three tips for getting outside, whatever the weather are…
- Keep yourself warm. If you’re wearing the right clothes, you’re much more likely to enjoy your time outside. Pretty much all the children I know don’t care if it’s cold, windy or raining – they are active kids and just love being outside. So, to help everyone enjoy themselves outside, and to stop you cutting short the children’s outdoor fun because you’ve had enough, my first tip is to make sure you are wearing the right clothes. Layer up, don’t forget your hat and gloves and make sure you are cosy.
- Get active. We’re going to shift our outdoor play away from fairy gardens and dinosaur world’s and include lots more active games. Hopscotch, skipping, what’s the time Mr. Wolf are great fun and will keep everyone on the move.
- Audit your outdoor space. Now is a good time to review your garden and get it ready for the colder months. Think about what you play outside and re-locate things or make changes to suit the weather. We’ll move the sandpit and den to under our covered area and make sure there are lots of props outside ready to spark active play (bikes, balls, kites, hula hoops). We’re not likely to do as much water play outside, so I’ll be thinking of ways to bring this inside.
What about you – are you an all weather family? How do you promote lots of outdoor play, whatever the weather?
Games to play with dice
Things to keep in your nappy bag to keep children occupied while waiting for an appointment: what do you always carry with you? Small books, paper and pencils, pot of bubble stuff? How about a dice*? Here’s a couple of suggestions for simple dice games to play whenever you need to keep the kids entertained for 10 minutes.
Gimme 6
One of you picks a category: fruit, vegetables, things that are yellow, things that start with ‘a’, things that are triangular – whatever you like! The other person rolls the dice and whatever number they land on they have to name that number of things in the category. Good to play with 5s and under as they can usually manage to think of up to 6 things, so you’re not hanging around waiting for them to think of the last one. Playing quite quickly with lots of different categories keeps them busier. For older children you might like to make the categories harder: places that start with ‘s’, planets, foods that grown underground, people who work in a hospital?
If you’re waiting outside, or somewhere with a bit of space, you can play a physical version of Gimme 6. Categories can include star jumps, touches of your toes, laps to the nearest lamppost, hops, forward rolls.
*OK, I know the singular of dice is die, but do you every say ‘die’? When I say it to B’s friends they don’t know what I’m talking about, so I’m bowing to what seems to be the norm nowadays are going with ‘a dice’. Happy to be corrected – what do you say?
How to make story stones
Story stones are a wonderful way to combine art, language and play. So making the most of our trip to the beach the girls and I collected a few smallish, flat pebbles to make our own set of story stones when we got home.
How to make story stones
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