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Parachute games

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parachute play games

We love parachute games! They are great for some large scale play with a group of children and are wonderful for promoting team work and listening skills, as everyone needs to work together to follow instructions and listen to cues to make the games work. You can play parachute games inside or out, with a play parachute or a big piece of fabric or a bedsheet. You don’t even need a whole class of children – I’ve played this happily as a pair with a toddler who loved bouncing their teddy on the sheet.

Parachute play ideas to try:

  • Follow the leader: Have someone be the leader and give the rest of the group instructions – and of course the leader can be one of the children rather than the grown-up! Try giving instructions to walk to the left, skip to the right, hold up high, couch down low, shake the parachute gently, shake the parachute quickly.
  • Add some bounce. You can add a seasonal element or fit parachute play to a theme by adding some props on to the top to bounce around while you play. Cotton wool balls make great snow, and we use fir cones in the autumn. We find teddies love a ride and balloons add a dash of chaotic fun!
  • As well as having the children work together around the edge of the parachute, have them listen out for instructions that apply just to themselves. Have everyone lift the parachute way up high and then give instructions for children to run underneath the parachute if they are wearing something green, if they have brown hair, if they like eating bananas and so on.
  • You can also pick someone to sit in the centre of the circle and wrap them up like a birthday present, or spin them like a washing machine. Remind the children to keep the parachute low to the ground when you do this, so the person in the centre doesn’t have their head covered. It’s very funny for the children to have one of the grown-ups sit in the centre to be wrapped up (believe me, I’ve tried it!)
  • Sherry and Donna from Irresistible Ideas have some great photos of their children enjoying parachute play with music and show how working together means you can even make your bouncing teddy hit the roof!

We’re always looking for new inspiration – what ideas for parachute play have you tried?

(Thanks for our Facebook friend Lily Vanilli for the washing machine idea.)

Happily shared with For the Kids Friday and  Preschool Corner

 

Giving children pocket money

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pocket money ideas

Do you give your children pocket money? B, who’s eight, has been asking for months and months now to start having pocket money and so far I’ve managed to put her off, saying I’ll have a think about it. The main reason for dithering is because I’m just not sure how to handle the whole pocket money idea – so I thought I’d ask you. How do you deal with pocket money in your family? Here’s what I’m wondering about – and I’d really love to have your input.

  • I don’t want to encourage the girls to be ‘consumers’ as we try to mainly buy what we need rather than thinking of things we could spend money on. Yes, we buy things of course, but we’ve never had ‘shopping’ as one of the things we do for fun. I make most of our purchases online, or buy from local shops but usually when the girls are in school. We have new toys mainly as birthday and Christmas presents and use the library for books, so I almost feel that if we started giving pocket money we’d actually have to create trips to the shop just to give them the chance to buy something with it, which I don’t want to do.
  • Should pocket money be linked to doing chores so the girls learn about working hard to earn money – or should they be expected to do chores as part of their role within the family anyway? No-one pays me to do the ironing!
  • Should they be given certain amounts for each task, or an overall allowance for completing all their tasks. I could easily imagine a certain person deciding never to keep their bedroom tidy because they don’t really need the 50pence they’d get for it!
  • What would they have to use their pocket money for? Just treats or things including Brownie subs, the tuckshop at school, family and friends presents? Is it best to let children spend their money however they like and learn their own lessons when it runs out , or set rules about how much goes on treats, how much is saved and how much is given to charity?
  • What about younger sisters? Is L too young at four to receive pocket money or is it unfair to give it to an older sibling but not a younger one?
  • How much pocket money would I give?

So many questions! Will you help me out? How do you handle pocket money in your family? What works for you and what problems have you encountered?

Storytelling with children

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Story telling with children
Put down your books! You don’t often hear me actively encouraging children not to read but have you ever tried oral story telling with your children and having them make the story up? Children most often have stories told to them, so let them be the story teller for a change.

Help them stretch their imaginations, practise using words in different ways, and build their confidence to find their voice and speak up. You might also get a real insight into what’s going on in their minds and they could surprise you with what happens in their story.

Telling stories aloud is fully mobile: whether you’re cosy on the sofa on a rainy day, walking to school or waiting for an appointment in the doctor’s surgery, you can tell each other stories.

There are no rules really – take it in turns to tell the story, following on from each other, or pick one person to be the story teller this time.

Use a familiar tale and give it a twist, or make up something completely new.

If there’s pause and the children need a prompt, try asking ‘what happened next?’, ‘why did that happen?’ rather than steering the story yourself.

Try these story starters as a springboard and see where your imaginations take you:

  • Once up on a time B and L went for a walk in a forest. They walked and they walked and they walked until at last they found a ….
  • When I woke up this morning , you’ll never believe what I found in my bedroom. It was a great big…
  • Once upon a time a witch lived in a little cottage in the middle of a wood. One day she woke up and said to herself…

happily shared with New For Us Friday and  For the Kids Friday and  ABCand123 and We Play and Tot School and  Pre-School Corner

 

Mark making with play dough

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Help your child learn pre-writing skills through mark making with play dough.
mark making with play dough

Mark making with play dough

We are huge fans of play dough in our house. We’ve just made a new batch using our favourite play dough recipe with some orange essence added to bring some smelly sensory fun.

I find play dough is a great activity for after school, especially if we have a mixed age group of children playing. It’s very relaxing as it has the lovely touchy-feely aspect of sensory play and there’s no right or wrong way to play with it – so however old you are (grandparents included!) you can enjoy it, without finding it frustrating or needing any grown-up interference.

mark making with play dough

Today I thought I’d mention how fabulous play dough is on the road to learning to write. While you might not associate dough with holding a pencil, all the kneading and shaping you do as you play is just right for building up fine motor skills – giving little fingers lots of practise in mobility, grasping and manipulating.

pre-writing practise with play dough

If your child is showing an interest it’s easy to extend the play by providing something to ‘write’ with, whether it’s a blunt pencil, stick, feather or other tool. By sitting alongside your child as they play you can model mark making, gently suggesting different patterns to try and seeing if they’d like to copy.

mark making activities for preschool

Try using a variety of marks which correspond to the shapes included when you eventually begin to write letter characters: horizontal and vertical lines, zigzags, circles, waves and loops.

You might find that children who are otherwise reluctant to ‘write’ do enjoy this kind of mark making. It’s a good option to introduce early writing skills to children who show little interest in pencils and paper.

Aromatherapy play for babies

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aromatherapy play for babies

It’s the half term holiday for us this week and I’m off out and about with the girls, so I thought I’d share a favourite idea from our archive with you today. Using some things from your kitchen cupboards you can give your baby a lovely sensory play time.

Have you thought about how your baby uses their sense of smell as they explore the world? Babies love tubs and pots to put things in and out of and with our aromatherapy box play idea you can give them a smelly sensory experience too.

super baby play ideasOur SUPERbaby play series focuses on simple, playful ideas you can use with the youngest of children to have fun and encourage them to develop important early learning skills. The emphasis is on ideas you can easily fit into a busy week, using materials you’ll have around your home. View all our SUPERbaby ideas here.

Go Play! Showcase: The Imagination Tree

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This week’s Go Play! showcase features Anna from The Imagination Tree. Anna is a regular contributor to our Play Academy idea swap and blogs some wonderful ideas for babies and toddlers. Here she is to tell you more about The Imagination Tree.

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Anna Ranson and I’m an Early Years specialist teacher from the UK. I taught Reception classes for many years  at a large city school, co-ordinating the Early Years team and helping to transform our department into one of the best in the borough by having a child-centred, play-based approach to teaching and learning. I then left work to start the hardest job I’ve had to date i.e. looking after my own children at home! I started The Imagination Tree blog as a creative outlet and a way to share some of the ideas and activities we were getting up to together. I have been amazed by the plethora of fantastic ideas on other websites working with young children. The internet is a fabulous resource! I have worked for a long time with a good friend and excellent early years teacher Sue Rogers, who is soon going to be co-authoring the blog. She is now an Early Years consultant and has a wealth of teaching experience and a wonderful understanding of how young children learn. The blog is going to continue to be about activities for babies and small children, but there will also be a resource bank of planning and teaching ideas for early years educators to dip into. I’m very excited about this next stage of the project!

What’s your play philosophy?

Play should be fun, creative, child-centred, open-ended, imaginative and relevant to each child’s level of experience in the world. It does not need to be planned or dictated, but parents and educators do need to make sure that there are a wealth of resources and materials for children to use that will enhance rather than limit their play experiences. More often than not these are simple, everyday, junk materials that can be turned into absolutely anything, using the power of imagination. When a child is bored of something, it should be left and new ideas pursued, starting with the child’s current interests and abilities. Play should happen both inside and outside as there is powerful research to suggest that most children’s most meaningful play experiences and memories are created in the outdoor environment. We used to have these quotations framed in our classroom: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” (Albert Einstein) and “You don’t stop playing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop playing.” (George Bernard Shaw) They are just brilliant and sum it up perfectly!

Inspire us!

It was hard to choose what to share here because there are so many different things to choose from and we have enjoyed so many of them! But these are a few of our favourites:

This DIY roadway was made using an old cardboard box and paint. I loved this because it shows what you can make from cheap materials and that will facilitate a child in a healthy dose of imaginary play.

This is one example of the small world play scenes that we make for imaginary play. I absolutely LOVE making these and I think they are such a fantastic resource, especially in learning environments. Here is our small world beach scene:

This one combines a craft and play and was very easy and lots of fun.

There are lots more ideas to explore over at The Imagination Tree so please do pop over to visit.

******Would you like to be featured in the Go Play! Showcase?******

If you blog about play and early learning, or have a site you think our readers would love, drop me a line at cathy (at) nurturestore.co.uk

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