Play Trays Final Week

 Our last week of school and here are our trays.

Our last play with marbles for the year.

Spinning Tops

      

Eye droppers, coloured water and little cube trays

Finally, little bears and furniture.

Snail Release

It’s been another successful year growing our snail garden.

But the time arrived to let them go.

We took them to the same nature park that we released our tadpoles.

Interestingly the snails wouldn’t leave their garden.

Couldn’t have been because the children were so well trained to put them back into the garden, when the snails got to the top, that they didn’t have a chance to leave????

We went for a walk and came back to check if they were gone.

    

We found only one part way out.

We had to help the others.

Then they were on their way.

Play Trays Week 21

The first tray contains flowers to button onto their stems.

Great practice unbuttoning and then buttoning.

The second tray has a fishing game.

You wind it up then try to catch a fish as it spins around.

The fish are opening and closing their mouths.

It took a lot of patience to catch a fish.

It came with two little fishing rods,  perfect for friends to fish together.

Fishing Indoors

We’ve been fishing for crabs, octopus, sea turtles and big and little fishes.

Deep in the ocean, through the water bubbles and sea weed.

The little fishing rods have magnets on the ends and each little fish has a metal nail securely in it.

Some that got away.

Part of the fun has been playing with the water bubbles 

and sea weed 

hanging around the ocean.

    

Exploring the water bubbles.

Touching and running through them.

   

Reaching, stretching, grabbing and peeking through.

Jelly Fish

Our ocean window from the outside.

Our art table prepared for making jelly fish.

Use a piece of contact paper.  

Stick on colourful shaped confetti and streamers.  

Add another piece of contact or clear paper on top.

Then play!

“Jellyfish, jellyfish, floating in the water”.

Our Small World Garden Play

Come and join us in the garden.

You can sit in the shade under the umbrella, around the table set for lunch

or perch on a tree stump.

Mamma and baby deer are here too.

Children tell stories through this type of play.

Either with words or by their actions.

I imagine she is thinking…
“Bear is in the garden.
Oh oh he's wandering around the garden.
Does he smell food?

Yum, yum, yum, bear is hungry.
 Here bear have some food.”

Even though she didn’t say a word she told me a story through her actions.

Parachute Play at Circle Time

 Lately there have been more families visiting with younger children and I noticed that story time has been a little noisier.  

Time to get more active.  

Out came the parachute.

We have been singing Shoo Fly and it works well with the parachute.

We walk in a circle as we sing

“Shoo Fly don’t bother me, Shoo Fly don’t bother me, 

cause I belong to somebody”.

When we sing…

“I feel, I feel, I feel like a morning star” 

– the parachute is lifted and the children run under.

Then they run out as we finish singing

 – “I feel, I feel, I feel like a morning star”. 

They love it! 

A second song we sing is “I Have a Rocket” we learned it from our music teacher, Jill.

First we put little balls that we call rockets onto the parachute then sing the song.

“I have a rocket, I’m going to fly it to the moon. 

I have a rocket, I’m going to fly it really soon.

I’m going to make it fly on the count of

5,4,3,2,1 BLAST OFF!”

The rockets go flying and the room is filled with delighted screams.  The children run to collect a rocket, throw it back on and we do it all again.  

I wish I had thought of doing this earlier in the year.