Water play Archives - Page 3 of 3

Electricity and playdough – who knew?

12/06/2011 by Cathy James 1 Comment

If you have got your copy of our free Let’s Play Dough ebook you might like to use one of the recipes to try this experiment we found via Brick by Brick – who knew playdough could conduct electricity?!

On our summer wish list: make a water wall using the ideas collected over on let the children play.

These kid created comics from kinderpendent are a fun way to keep kids writing all summer long.

And how much mess can you tolerate? Join artist Pia Walker and me as we chat about encouraging creativity in children.

Have a great weekend!

The Rainbow Fish craft idea

08/05/2011 by Cathy James Leave a Comment

I’m delighted to feature a guest post idea today from Suzanne of skybluesea, inspired by The Rainbow Fish story by Marcus Pfister.

Suzanne is a freelance textile artist and she’s recently been working with a Reception and Year One class to produce an amazing collaborative work based on The Rainbow Fish book. The process incorporated art, design, texture, colour and numeracy. Here’s Suzanne to tell you more.

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“A long way out in the deep blue sea there lived a fish. Not just an ordinary fish, but the most beautiful fish in the entire ocean. His scales were every shade of blue and green and purple, with sparkling silver scales among them.”
extract from ‘The Rainbow Fish’ by Marcus Pfister .

I have recently completed a project with a Reception and Year One class for Curious Minds. The brief was to include collaborative and individual working for the children, numeracy and the theme ‘water’. Mathematical language was used throughout : how many?, how many more?, Is that too much?, Do we need more or less?

The children experienced silk-painting, and drawing outlines of shapes with gutta. We then talked about ‘The Rainbow Fish’ and we decided to create a huge silk painting based on it. They also made small wire and tissue fishes, and they had to choose two colours of beads for threading – counting as they threaded them on.

Their fishes were then suspended from the ceiling with ribbons and displays of their silk painting, and lot of photographs of the children working. Questions like ‘How many points does a star fish have?’, ‘How many octopus can you see?’ also became part of the display.

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The children’s project also incorporated felt making, sewing and weaving. I love how they were able to try out lots of different techniques and make their own design choices as well as coming together to create a collaborative work of art the whole class took part in.

You can see the finished result and find a tutorial for the felt making collage over at skybluesea – pop over and be inspired to try the ideas out with your children.

happily shared with abcand123

How to make a rock pool

25/04/2011 by Cathy James 12 Comments

After a trip to the beach we returned with a bucket full of treasures and decided to make a rock pool in the garden for lots more beach play at home. You can see in the pictures some of the things we collected, and a few we already had at home: pebbles and shells, sand and seaweed and two mermaid’s purses (much to B’s delight).

The girls gave the treasures a clean and then settled them into a new home in a tub of water. They made some fish from scrunched up tinfoil and then were ready to play. Adding in some tea-strainer fishing nets was perfect.

Books about seasides and mermaids

My girls love stories about the sea. Here are two favourites which we’re reading tonight – the perfect bedtime stories after a trip to the beach.

Shirley Hughes books are favourites in our house and The Big Alfie Out of Doors Storybook is L’s favourite of them all. It’s a collection of short stories and poems about outdoor play and adventures. One tells the story of Bonting, Alfie’s treasured pebble who is lost (and later happily found) on a family outing to the beach. The illustrations capture the essence of a UK beach.

Can You Catch a Mermaid by Jane Ray is a wonderful story set by the sea. It’s a moving tale of a lonely little girl and a very hard decision she has to make. It’s all about friendship and features Jane Ray’s beautiful illustrations. B has a real love of mermaids so this is her top pick, and I like it because it can be read on different levels: it has a happy ending and also leaves you thinking about unanswered questions long after you’ve finished reading.

happily shared with gardening with kids and made by little hands and inspire me Monday and tot school and science Sunday and link and learn and craft schooling Sundayand preschool corner and the resource centre and it’s playtime and upcycled awesome and works for me Wednesday and tot tuesday and we play and abc and 123

Ideas for water play

07/08/2010 by Cathy James 4 Comments

Welcome to the third edition of #goplay Twitter Tips. This week we have ideas for getting the most from water play.

#goplay Twitter Tip #1 water play is great for kids of all ages, free, not too messy, and accessible: bucket, bath, water pistol, beach…

#goplay Twitter Tip #2 No children should ever play unsupervised with water. Safety first, then have some fun.

#goplay Twitter Tip #3 Water play is great for exploring maths: add funnels & containers of different size to play with volume & dimension.

#goplay Twitter Tip #4 Explore the science of freezing &melting, treasure hunt objects frozen in ice, make ice lollies.

#goplay Twitter Tip #5 Add in some songs at bathtime to develop language: Row, row, row your boat. 5 Little ducks. Thou Shall Have a Fishy.

#goplay Twitter Tip #6 Add some food colouring to bath water to create a magical water world. (Thanks to A Mother’s Ramblings for this idea.)

#goplay Twitter Tip #7 Bath time is a lovely time to bond esp. if you’ve been apart in the day. A sensory play time to relax before sleep.

#goplay Twitter Tip #8 A tub of water is transformed with props: boats, fishes and rods, shells, pots and pans.

#goplay Twitter Tip #9 Bubbles build brains: make kids think. What seems solid suddenly pops. How does that happen? Have a look at these giant bubbles at the Frugal Family Fun Blog.

#goplay Twitter Tip #10 No such thing as bad weather only the wrong clothes. Seize the day, put on wellies, go #playoutdoors in the puddles!

Catch our #goplay Twitter Tips each Friday at 8.30pm (GMT). Previous tips have looked at Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Playdough and Encouraging Reading and Writing.

Come and join us next week by following @nurturestore on Twitter.

Happily shared with…

Water play: washing up

15/05/2010 by Cathy James 11 Comments

Sometimes the simplest ideas turn out to be just the most fun. Little asked if she could do the washing up yesterday ‘like a grown-up’. Two minutes to set up, all for free, and it kept her busy for an hour. I think she enjoyed it so much because she was using ‘real’ adult things rather than ‘toys’: washing up liquid, our washing up bowl and one of ‘Mummy’s’ scrubbing pads.

As you can see we set her up outside so there was no need to worry about any splashes. However this has turned out to be so much fun, she’s been playing again today when it’s been rather chilly so she’s been in the kitchen. I put a big bath towel on the floor as a precautionary measure but she’s been very grown up and sensible so there’s hardly any spills.

I only wish I still found doing the dishes so much fun.

For more fun ideas check out our other kids role play ideas

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