Tag Archives: #blockplay

Ship Ahoy!!

Last week in the Discovery Room the children were fascinated with Aeroplanes! This stemmed from one child talking about his Daddy being an engineer for an Airline! The children watched clips of planes landing and then designed and built their own aeroplane using the blocks!

Following on from this, we had a discussion about different modes of transport and today the children decided to design and build their own boat! We looked at clips of different types of boats on the screen and got to work creating our masterpiece!

“This boat needs big sides!”
“Don’t forget a steering wheel!”

Once the Cartmill Cruise Ship was complete the children wasted no time jumping on board and playing in it!

“There’s too many people, it might sink!”

The children used their imaginations and went on holiday to many places from Glasgow to as far away as Canada!

”My Gran goes on a cruise ship!”

When we were in bed sleeping the sea got a bit choppy which the children thought was scary!

”Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The children then used the iPad to scan the QR code for our five little boats song which they enjoyed singing along to!

Once we had travelled the world in our boat the children decided they wanted to make their own little boats to race in the water tray! It was agreed that tinfoil would create the best boats.

“Tinfoil is light, because it’s light it stays on top of the water!”

“The sides are going up to stop the water going in!”

”Mine is a big boat with a little boat inside!”

The children had great fun racing their boats, they also decided to use empty butter tubs which they discovered also floated and they covered the lids in tinfoil to make a life raft!

“Ah, mine has sunk, my floating bits have come off!”

”Oh no, I have a leak, it’s sprung a leak!”

”There’s been a Tsunami which caused a whirlpool!”

We explained to the children their boats had capsized! They had not heard this expression before so we looked it up on the iPad to show them images of what it meant!

A lot of fun was had by the children starting with them being so imaginative in the block area. Block play encourages the children’s creativity whilst learning to take turns and share materials. They are learning to cooperate whilst playing and communicating with their friends!

Well done to the Cartmill designers and builders!

Article  31 – Children have the right to play.

Mega Measuring!

This week the children have been making the most of the sunshine out in the garden. Some of our children were having great fun exploring measurement through their play!  They decided to use the decking boards to measure their friends. They wanted to find out who was taller than the different sized boards!

“Yip! You are taller than the wood so you can go on our rollercoaster!”

”Sorry, you are not tall enough for the rollercoaster!”

We decided to develop the children’s interest in measurement in the block area. The children helped to attach a large tape measure to the wall! They then used different sized blocks to build their own tower and measure how tall it was. They used a pen to mark on a piece of tape how tall they could actually build their towers!

“My tower is the biggest, it’s away up here!”

Some of the children wanted to estimate and point to where they thought they could build their tower to before it fell down!

“Yay look I got it that big, to that number!”

Next the children decided to measure each other and mark on the tape to see who was the tallest!

“You are tallest but let’s  see with your hair sticking up if you can be tallest!”

”If I put on my high heels on  I’ll be tallest! Try with your high heels!
(Tip Toes of course!!)

Other children were building towers with sticky bricks and decided to come over and measure their designs!

“I added more bricks and it’s in the higher numbers!”

”This tower is even taller than me!!”          “Wow, that’s big!”

What great fun we had with measurement this week and what great imaginations our children have!

 

Article 31 ~ The right to play

 

 

 

 

 

Creative builders in the block area 🧱👷🏽‍♀️👷🏾‍♂️

Over the last week in the block area the children have been using their imagination and problem solving skills to represent their ideas in imaginative ways. We have been making ice cream shops, which has been very popular with the children and the staff!

“I need the small ones for the ice cream”

“The big blocks can be for the walls”

The children have been enhancing their Problem solving skills, mathematic skills and communication skills by working alongside their friends to create their ice cream shops. The children were able to discuss bug and small blocks and give reasons for using different ones.

“my house has a pillow for the bed, I sleep up here”

”we’re saving our house from the big bad wolf!”

The children have also shown an interest in creating and designing their own houses both individually and working together with our friends. In block play, children are able to free flow their own ideas and building their constructions brings a feeling of success and allows children to build their self-esteem.

Article 15: I have the right to meet with friends

Article 31: I have the right to play

 

Block Play & Lose Parts exploration!

This week in the block area, the children have been investigating various different ways to create models & use their problem solving skills, self expression and imagination to create their own models.

The most popular creation this week has been building bridges of various shapes, sizes, length and height. The children have been developing their social and emotional skills by learning to take turns and share materials with their peers.

Block play helps children to become more confident in social situations and create friendships through communication and taking turns. Some of our children used the blocks and included some of our lose parts to create a ”tea party” where they made ”chicken nuggets” for their friends and shared them out one at a time. Very imaginative!

In the lose parts area, some of the children have showed that they are able to confidently match and sort objects using their own criteria such as colour or shape. The children were able to collect specified groups of objects and are beginning to organise objects.

”All the circles together”

”Orange”

Article 28: You have the right to education

Article 31: You have the right to play

Welcome to our block play! 🧱

Today in the block area the children have been exploring the first two stages of block play, carrying and stacking. These stages allow children to carry the blocks around and use their senses to feel different shapes and weights and begin to explore building by stacking blocks vertically to create towers and horizontally to form rows.

Froebel block play has 7 stages, the children are starting at the beginning as for some of our children we are exploring the block area for the first time. For our older children, this gives us the opportunity to become role models and share our previous knowledge and skills.

The children worked together to carry the blocks to where they wanted to go, great teamwork everyone!

Then we used our knowledge and problem solving skills to create our stacking towers, some children used large blocks, some used small blocks. We remembered our safety rules and didn’t build our towers any higher than our necks.

  

Block play helps children to learn to take turns and share materials, develop new friendships and co operate with others. It also allows children to develop their special awareness and develop their risk assessment skills.

Brilliant Building

Today in the block area, we have been using our curiosity, problem solving skills and imagination to create different models and explore our small world toys within the block area.

”Lets build a rollercoaster”

”it can be a house too”

”we have to build it big”

The children used their imaginations to work out design criteria and take turns to work together to construct their model. The children decided they were building a ”rollercoaster house” which had lots of different features such as lights and speakers! So cool!!

Some of the other children decided to explore our new small world loose part toys in the block area.

We explored role play with the dinosaurs and people figures creating our own small world stories. There was volcanos, mountains and lava!! Block play helps children to take turns and share different materials, develop new friendships and socialisation skills and co-operate with others.