Tray Play

We haven't done play trays in awhile so I made up these bins.

 Little babies in different positions buried in confetti.

 The children have to dig in the confetti to find all the babies

then match them to the correct picture.

Gingerbread cookies and stockings in coloured salt.

They loved digging in the salt to find all the pieces.

 Matching them to the pictures

not necessarily in order.

Buttons in bread clips was a challenge.

 It took a lot of focus to search through the bread clips.

The easy part was matching the different size buttons to the right picture.

The easiest tray was a colour match.

Search through the pom poms to find the colours and place them on 

the same coloured light.

I like seeing evidence of the grown ups playing

and being great role models.

Shape Patterns

Last week I set up this provocation for the children to explore shapes.

They created a variety of designs from simple to complex.

They were encouraged to label their design.

Then document it with the camera.

A favourite activity.

It encouraged them to make more and more designs.

I printed their photos and left them on the table and encouraged 

others to try to copy the designs.

This became a child driven activity rather than teacher.

Hide and Seek Game

                 
                         
      
   This is how it started, searching under all the baskets to find matches.
                           
Then I noticed that the surprise of finding a small toy hiding was more exciting; like a Peek-a-boo game.
   
It didn’t matter what was underneath.  And like playing with the box instead of the present, the little baskets were more attractive then the toy to this toddler.
 
I continued to observe a few older children that began to sort and group the toys.
 
               
Then others began to put them in a row.  I see the beginning of patterning.
       
                      They also used them as little finger puppets. 
The parent in the first picture was using wonderful facial expressions to talk about 'scary'.
The second child worked hard placing the kitten puppets on her fingers without any help.  Looking at her face I wonder what she is thinking?  Is she telling herself a story?  Is she counting?  Is she wondering how they feel on her fingers?

Pom Pom Patterning

Our play tray table this week contained one activity.
      
A simple activity using egg cartons, pom poms, tongs and pattern cards. 
I found this idea at Ecole Petite Section.
        
I painted the dots to match the pom pom colours that I had.

            
The older children caught on to the idea quickly and filled up the cartons.

The younger children enjoyed using the tongs and placing the pom poms in the carton.  With a little help they started to match the colours from the cards
to the pom poms. 
              
A simpler idea for toddlers would be to paint the inside of the cartons.
I'll try that another time.