Play Trays

Oh how time flies and today I realized that I haven’t posted any of our play trays since the new school year started.

So here are a bunch all at once.
                          
 
 
 
 
 

Where Do We Find the Answer?

            
One day when my husband and I were out for a hike, we found this jaw bone. 
I thought it would interest the children and start conversations.
It did.
As the children examined the bone and the teeth, I heard them ask their grown ups “What is it from?”

Since I was the person that brought it in, the grown ups sent the children to ask me. 
I didn’t know since I found it like you see it. 
So I put the question back to the children. 
What do you think it is?
                
Dinosaur was a favourite guess. 
Then I asked the children where they think we could find the answer. 
After a few prompts, a book was mentioned. 
So off we went to the library with the jaw bone to show the librarian.
She was very helpful and we found several books about mammals to borrow.
        
We narrowed done the choices to three.
 
They insisted that a dinosaur be one of the choices.
I printed pictures of jaw bones for a T-rex, horse and cow. 
Placed with a toy showing the whole animal and let them continue the discussion and exploration.

To date, the cow has the most votes.
            

The Importance of Adults Playing

Over the years that I’ve been married I’ve had an ongoing conversation with my husband about playing.
                                     Grown ups need to play.

We forget to play because of busy work and home and family responsibilities. 
When we forget to play we can become stressed and, really, just boring.

Play for adults can be many different things from sports, hobbies, games, and more.
          
Last year my husband finally understood what I was talking about.  He started a hobby that he loved as a child, model railway building.  It’s amazing what he has created.  The winter passed with him happy and more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him.
                
The joy that he has found playing with his trains has overflowed into his life.  Look at the smile on his face when he heard the whistle on the real steam train.

In regards to StrongStart, it’s so important that we play for many  reasons.  Although they can be lost when we are overwhelmed with many families arriving at one time and all the admin work that that involves.  But here are a few reasons to help bring us back to what StrongStart, in my opinion, is meant to be.

One - play to model for the parents and grandparents that attend.
Two - play to understand the play space.  How does it flow?  Is there enough space for the play to happen?  Are the materials arranged in a way to be inviting?
Three - play to find moments of joy in your day.
             
Four - play to make connections with the children.

Last week, I had a family visit that I hadn’t seen for almost a year.  The little boy wasn’t even crawling then.  The day they visited he was quite shy and I couldn’t make a connection with him just by talking.

As his mom gently showed him around the room and he found an area of interest, I joined in.  The picture above shows us playing in the boat.

Just before the picture was taken I was showing the child the oars and how to use them but it wasn’t until I sat in the boat and started singing Row, Row , Row your Boat that a connection between us was made.

He looked up at me and smiled which I interpreted as “Ah I know that song and you’re a kindred spirit”.  Then we played.

A few days later the mom posted the above picture on Facebook and my first thought was “I love my job!”   Thanks for playing.

Awesome Autumn

Fall is my favourite time of year.
I love going out for a walk on a crisp day and looking at all the beautiful red, orange and brown colours. 
The sound of leaves under my feet makes me smile.
            
As I mentioned yesterday, the weather has been quite warm and the leaves aren’t changing much yet.
So at the art table we made our own Autumn Trees.
          
We started by ripping brown paper to make a tree.
               
Ripping paper isn’t something that we’ve done often so it took a bit of encouragement for the children to give it a try before getting scissors.

Then we began stamping on the leaves. 
 
I taped bunches of drinking straws and bunches of pencils together for the stamps.
 
The bunches consisted of 3 – 6 straws or pencils.

The results…

                     
   

Twas the Day before Autumn

Today is the day before Autumn begins and since the weather outside is unseasonably warm the leaves really haven’t changed much.
So we  made our own leaf fun indoors.
                 
Our tree is a real trunk with a top that is made from papier mache with green tissue leaves attached.
I supplied two baskets of fake silk leaves, rakes, shovels and dress up clothes.
 
The children began by emptying the leaves on the floor then raking them up.  We talked about the leaves ‘falling’ from the tree
    
and that eventually led to the grown ups piling the leaves on top of the tree.
      
But how do the leaves ‘fall’ off the tree?
Sometimes the wind will blow them off. 
This child is being the wind and blowing upwards.  That didn’t work well.
     
The first impulse for almost every child was to use the rake to knock the leaves off.  But for safety reasons we encouraged them to find another method.
     
Maybe shaking the tree would work.  YES!
(Note: Sometimes I feel that the parents think I’m a little crazy with the ideas that happen here. Hence the dad's posture in the background.)
       
This activity met so many levels of interest in the multi-aged group that attends StrongStart. 
- filling and emptying the basket
- piling and scooping
         
- watching the leaves fall
- cause and effect
- picking the leaves up one by one
    
Here are a couple of books that we read today to expand on our language.
   

A Peek At Play

This morning was quite busy with many families coming in to play.
As I wandered around the room I was amazed to see many different play explorations happening.
                 
The above moment shows several children (and me) playing at the boat in the dramatic play area.  All three children were involved in different ways. Exploring what it was to paddle, steer and dress like a mermaid. 
Playing together but separate.
       
A wonderful car ramp changed several times this morning depending on the age of the child playing.
                  
Exploring glass bottles and what will fit inside.  What each item sounds like when it drops in the bottle.   And how to get them out again.
            
The house play area was busy (as you can see at the back of the photo) so this little guy set up a new area on top of the puppet theatre. 
  
This play was interesting.  The little girl and her grandpa had been playing with the ponies and arches but it quickly changed when the child turned the empty basket into a hat.  She continued to look around through the holes.  A child`s interest changes quickly especially at a younger age.
            
Back on the carpet area this boy brought all the trees and dinosaurs over and set up this wonderful scene.  The little girl arrived, saw it and promptly said ``I like dinosaurs.`` A conversation began about the names of the dinosaurs.

This was just a few samples of what was happening during our open play time this morning. 
I`m delighted to see that families are feeling comfortable and beginning to explore the shelves and play with materials in different ways in various areas of the room.