Tuff Spot: An afternoon in Africa

Sensory play always goes down a storm in my house and I love to explore new ideas. The idea of colouring rice I discovered on the wonderful blog The Imagination Tree. Anna's ideas for play are amazing and I often use her ideas at work.

So in the morning I got to work baking some rice which I had mixed with green food colouring. I kept the oven on 100 degrees so the rice would not burn. It was given a stir every 15 minutes until it was dry again.

The rice turned out great and I left it out to cool down until the afternoon so I could get it ready while the children slept.

The rice, leaves and animals were placed in a large trug. This made it easier for all the children to be able to reach.

The children loved this new idea and were not tempted to place the rice in their mouths because of the colour. A used the leaves as pillows and put the animals to sleep. She is usually scared of animals so I was surprised at how interested she was with this activity.

Once the animals had a good sleep it started to rain and the children came up with the idea of covering their heads with leaves for shelter.

Learning Opportunities:

Physical development- Developing pincer grasp and coordination
Creative development- using object to represent others, using imagination through play.
Mathematical development- Pouring and collecting
KUW development- Learning about animals and their habitat.
CLL development- Learning new vocabulary and communication with others.

Discovery Bottles

Starting up as a childminder can be expensive. You not only have to pay out for training and checks but there is all the toys and equipment to think of. When I first started out I decided that where possible I would try and buy second hand or make what ever I could.

Looking after two year olds I decided that heuristic would feature heavily through my equipment. Previously I created discovery bottles at nursery, they were always a hit with children of all ages and cheap to make. This time round I made ones focusing on colour, sound and shapes. This is what the children help to fill them with.

Pasta and beads.

Water, baby oil and food colouring

Water, glitter and blue food colouring.

Foam shapes, sequin animals and water.

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Rice and plastic buttons.

As the children loose interest and get older I am planning on changing what is in the bottles and hope to blog about these too.

Garden Chalk Art

Last week while playing in the garden I got out the chalks for the children to use on the patio slabs. This is a new material for the toddlers and as A is very fond of drawing at the moment this was a great way to extend and encourage her interests.

At first the toddlers started out making only small marks. I would say this was due to them being uncertain whether they can draw on the floor or not. Once they had noticed what the older children were doing they soon gained more confidence and started to make larger marks.

G decided to draw pictures of the family. This is a picture of G with me in a heart.

This is a picture of her dad. She explained that his a super hero and the green behind him is his cloak.

We have link this art project up to this week Kids Art Explorers where they are exploring art with out paper.

Rice Crispie Rainbow

Hasn't April been a beautiful month?! Even though the rain seems non stop we have been making the most of getting out side when we can and we've even caught a glimpse of a few rainbows. In celebration of this month’s April showers that are bringing us magnificent rainbows as well as May flowers Outlaw Mom has put together a beautiful linky to share our colourful ideas.

This morning we enjoyed a spot of easy baking. The children loved pressing the buttons on the microwave and watching the chocolate start to melt. We mixed the chocolate up with some rice crispies and then placed them in a tray which we earlier lined with baking paper. Before the chocolate had time to set we got to work adding sprinkles, jelly beans and mini smarties to make our rainbow.

As we added the Jelly beans we guessed how many we would need and counted them to see if we were right.

The children loved watching the rainbow taking shape. Once we were finished we sang the 'rainbow song' and pointed to the colours as they came up. Amazingly the cake has made it through the morning and will make a great treat for after tea.

Thank you Outlaw Mom for all the inspiration and a great linky x.

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A Flower Collage

The children have settled in well to the house and the little ones have really taken to the garden regardless of the weather. With the outdoors being the children's main interest at the moment I have moved our topic onto 'Our Garden'.

Today the children were intrigued by the flower bed still filled to the brim with tulips. Once I had convinced them to come in doors from the rain to dry off and warm up, We got to work making flower collages.

The children choose flowers they would like to see in the garden and we cut them out ready for sticking.

We discussed what their favourite colours were and what colours we had already discovered in the garden.

Little man demonstrated great confidence in using the scissors and glue spreader. He loved to layer the pictures on top of one another.

I think the pictures turned out lovely and the children were very excited to display them for when their parents arrived.