Camping!

We have spent the last week camping on the Yorkshire Coast near Scarborough.  Camping in itself is a brilliant activity for young children.  They love the opportunity to be outdoors for long periods of time and sleeping in a tent is very exciting!

We spent a fair amount of time playing on the beaches at Filey and Scarborough.  Sand castles, ice cream, rock pools and digging big holes!

The view from the camping field was stunning on a clear day.  We spent some time looking for pirate ships on the sea!

We visited Scarborough Castle and went on a treasure hunt around the grounds.  We also joined in with some pirate games, which was lots of fun!

Boy and Girl enjoyed playing and getting dirty and not having to wash (much!).  If you get the chance to go camping with your children, go for it!  It really is worthwhile and they get a great deal out of it.

Silly Sand

I'm quite sure someone somewhere has discovered this before but we came across this quite by chance.  We had a sensory week at nursery last week and we had, of course, made gloop as part of this.  The children and I wondered what would happen if we added sand to the mixture.  The result is what they called 'Silly Sand.'

We mixed up some at home using about 1 1/2 cup fulls of play sand, 3/4 cup cornflour, some green food colouring and a little water.

It makes a kind of mold-able sand which is somewhere between gloop and play dough.  It can be squished and squeezed and relaxes a little but doesn't go totally runny like gloop.  When more water is added it becomes more gloopy and runny.  We used it for some creative play in the garden.

Kitchen equipment supported the creativity.  I think anything you use with play dough - especially moulds would work well.

Cake making.  Boy went on to make a 'tower cake, like a wedding cake.'

You can see the silly sand oozing a little from the cake moulds.  It really is great tactile, sensory stuff and both my own children and the children at nursery enjoyed it.  At nursery we used ice cube trays to make little cubes of silly sand and some children used them as bricks to construct things.  I guess this is similar to the commercially sold 'Moon Sand' but I think it has a more oozy nature than that.

Sunny Morning of Outdoor Play

Finally the sun has returned to Yorkshire and no better excuse (not that we need one!) to play outside this morning.  Some time on the trampoline and then the children decided on sand.  Boy climbed in to the sand box and Girl was happy to work around him.

Boy experimented with tipping and pouring the sand.  I asked 'what does it feel like?' He replied 'Runny.'  I said 'like water?' and he said 'yes a bit but not wet, it's cold.'  

He's using the vocabulary he knows to describe the properties of sand and how it moves - likening it to water, but realising it isn't a liquid.  He's drawing on his experience of playing with sand in the past to make these statements.

Girl wanted to fill buckets with sand and did this unaided and without spilling much.  Her physical hand eye co-ordination is developing to enable her to do this.

The sand she did spill she used to experiment with mark making using both her fingers and sand toys to do this.

Boy then wanted to bury 'treasure.' He used shells as treasure and covered them with the sand.  He noted, 'the sand isn't wet so it doesn't stick.'

There was so much in this play.  Communication and early literacy, science and investigation, turn taking, sharing, physical development, mathematical capacity calculations, critical thinking, creativity and imagination.  It's all learning through play, not a worksheet in sight thank goodness!

Sand and Paint

We had the morning together today before we went into nursery and the children didn't want to go out in the drizzle so I suggested we try and make some pictures using paint and sand.  This is what we did!

We used the following; paper, blue paint, water PVA glue, sand and some little shells.

We mixed together some paint, water and glue.

Then we used this to paint onto the paper.  Boy chose to cover his page and Girl just painted on some of hers.

Then we sprinkled sand over the top on the paint.  I had never done this before but the effect is quite good.  The sand makes a very fine spotty pattern on the paper and gives it an interesting texture.

We stuck some real small shells onto the picture too.  Boy was really pleased with his and took it to give to one of his teachers at nursery.

Using this blue colour gave it a really nice seaside feel but you could use any colour or a mix of colours.  It was a really easy activity and both children enjoyed it.  I like to do creative activities which don't require the children to do things in a certain way to create a specific finished product.  This is a good one because the results are attractive but the children can go about it in their own way without there being a right or wrong method.  They can express themselves better this way!

Importance of outdoor play

Playing outside is a really special thing.  Young children need to play outside and it's amazing how much they get out of it.  Being outdoors offers children opportunities they would never get inside.  They can be much free-er in their play by being noisy, messy, and having space to move in a different way.

We have been trying to improve the opportunities for play in our small garden for the last couple of weeks.  We wanted to give Boy and Girl more than just balls and skipping ropes.  Water and sand are an obvious choice for outdoor activities.  We have had a sand and water tray for a few years and so this has been cleaned up.

We have decided to use this just for water as it works much better than for sand which seems to block up the funnels!  Instead we have made our own sand tray using a fruit box we picked up for free at the local farm shop.  We've put a bin liner in the base to stop the sand escaping and then taped it down.  It works a treat!

Play sand can be bought from supermarkets quite cheaply and you can pretty much chuck in any plastic toys you happen to have or use things from the kitchen (spoons, jugs, cups etc).  You could go for more natural things like shells, pine cones, pebbles.  Get creative and go with your child's interest.

Girl really enjoyed playing with the sand for a while before lunch today.

Boy showed his sister how to make a sand castle and she was very interested in this idea.

Boy went inside to help make the lunch but Girl stayed playing with the sand for a while.

We have also set up a weather station where Boy can measure and record the weather each day.

We found this weather kit in Asda for £5.  It includes a thermometer, rain gauge and a weather diary sheet.

We got a wind sock as well for good measure.

I guess it's about making the most of the space you have outside.  Even if it's only a balcony or a small yard there is still quite a bit you can do.  We are adding a writing, drawing and painting area and I've begun planning some music making things too.  I'll take plenty of pictures when we've finished.