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!