Tag Archives: sensory play

Creativity

Shaping shaving foam

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Within the sensory area we have been experimenting with mark making using a variety of resources. Today we chose shaving foam and have been using it to create shapes in different ways.

This has involved painting the shapes with the foam, drawing with fingers and paint brushes and even printing the shapes in our hands.

“I’m painting a triangle.”
”I can make a circle, a square, a triangle and an oval.”
“A circle, he’s a curly one.”
“I made a diamond on my hand.”

For some of our younger children, they enjoyed the feel of the foam, naming the colours and learning the names of the shapes. It is super, messy fun whatever age you are!

Article 13- You have the right to find out things and share what you think with others by talking, drawing and writing.

 

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Cornflour Creations

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Throughout the week the children have been getting very excited about Halloween so today we decided to incorporate this in to the sensory area. We put some cornflour on the trays and selected a variety of mark making tools. Then we set about making our creepy creations…


“I’m making triangle eyes.”

“I’m making a spooky pumpkin with one circle eye and one triangle eye.”

“I’m making a spider and he’s coming after you!”

 


One of the boys experimented with moving the flour with the stick and realised he had made a bat wing! We experimented some more and worked out how to make two wings. He then took his time looking at the bat toy and added more features like a head and feet. Excellent work!


Some of the other children experimented with tracing around the Halloween toys and created some excellent pictures.

“I’m making a spider with only two legs and a pumpkin on his head.”

“My pumpkin has a silly face.”

Fantastic mark making and creativity skills from the children today!

Article 31- Every child has the right to take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

 

Technologies

Glorious Gloop

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Today at the malleable table the children chose to make gloop . They each had their own tray and took turns to add the ingredients; cornflour and water. The children used their hands  to mix the ingredients together till the gloop was ready.

“Mine is too thick I need some more water”

“Mine is watery so I need more cornflour”

The children then began to explore the gloop  using their hands  and fingers discussing the different the textures they could feel.

“It’s sticky”

“Mine is all gooey”

“I am going to add more water to make it slime”

“Mines is so soft”

“I like the feeling”

“It looks like milk”

“I made a line and it disappeared”

The  longer the children  explored they became intrigued why it was hard to touch but then when running through their fingers it changes textures and turns into liquid when picking it up. The children continued exploring the gloop and talking about the feeling of it.

“It’s hard and then turns to liquid”

“Water makes it loosen”

“Look it’s running through my hands”

“My handprint has just gone”

“Hard and then it’s just runs”

“It’s melting”

Little did the children know, they had performed a science experiment and had produced a non Newtonian fluid. Impressive!

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Sand play

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The children have been exploring edible sand made from ground cheerios. We have made edible sand to allow some of our children to explore the feeling of the sand in a safe way.

Sand play is a rich sensory experience, it can be very calming. It also give our children a way to explore and express their feelings.

Playing in the sand is terrific for developing fine motor skills, building hand eye coordination and strengthen muscles. As the children make movements such as digging, scooping, pouring, pushing and lifting they are developing all these key pre writing skills.

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Sand play can give the children the opportunity to develop useful social skills while playing alongside their peers and help to spark creativity.


“A little strawberry on the top”

“I’m popping a lid on it”

And most of  all sand allows the children to play and have fun with their friends.

Expressive Arts

3D Sculpting in the Studio

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Today, we have been very busy showing off our creative skills in the Studio. We designed our own fabulous sculptures and combined clay and a variety of different art materials to create them.

We had lots of different materials to choose from such as foam shapes, colourful straws, feathers ,patterned buttons, ribbon and pasta shapes.

First we took some cold, squishy clay to make a base for our sculpture. We moulded it in our hands before carefully positioning and  setting our skewer to begin our creations.

We used good hand eye co-ordination while we were skilfully threading our chosen materials onto our sculptures. We demonstrated excellent fine motor skills, especially when it was a little bit tricky getting those buttons through the skewers!

”I like the feathers it makes it look pretty”

”I’m making mine all blue”

“I can put three bits of pasta together to make it taller”

”I think the buttons are a bit  tricky ”

We loved showing off our our final products and displayed them proudly in the studio.

Can you create some 3D sculptures at home ? You could try sculpting some creative art using junk from any recycling materials you may have.

 

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Science Citrus explosions

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Today some of the children in the discovery room wanted to make an explosion. We decided to try and make one using lemons and tangerines. We placed the orange and tangerine onto a plate and then took the tops off and squished the insides of the fruit to bring out some of the juice. We then squeezed some washing up liquid into the juice and added some food colouring and a teaspoonful of baking soda. After we did this, we watched as the fruits exploded with colourful bubbles! It was so exciting!!
We talked about the science and how the experiment worked. Citrus fruit contains citric acid which has a chemical reaction when it mixes with the baking soda due to form carbon dioxide, which is a gas. Once the citric acid and the baking soda have neutralised each other the reaction stops and no more gas is made. The children had so many things to say about the experiment including:
“ I think the lemon has more citrus acid in it than the tangerine because the lemon has bigger bubbles”

“I want my explosion to be rainbow colours”” Look the blue and red has turned black”
“I need more baking powder I want a big explosion “ “ It feels slimy if you touch it” “The lemon smells nice”


We really enjoyed participating in this fun science activity.

Expressive Arts

Halloween Sensory Play

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Today the children used pipettes to draw up coloured ink and then dropped it onto the paper. They then used a straw to blow patterns. The children noticed the colours changing as the inks merged. They also noticed that the ink behaved differently on different materials eg “ It’s more watery on the tin foil” “ It doesn’t make patterns on the bubble wrap”

The children talked about the colours they were using and which was their favourite they were able to work together and showed great turn taking skills waiting for their turn of the pipettes.

In preparation for Halloween the children asked for something slimy and gooey to explore. The children decided that jelly would be best. The toddlers helped to make the jelly on Thursday  evening, they measured and stirred following my instructions closely. The children then  hid some natural autumnal items and some not so natural inspired by Halloween in the jelly.

The children used all five senses to explore the jelly. Some used tweezers to take the objects out of the jelly developing their fine motor skills, others dived straight in with their hands.  The children used lots of descriptive language. “”So sticky and cold””Jelly is delicious “ I’ve got an orange jelly” “I see a pumpkin “”This one has a pine cone in it” “This jelly feels good it’s wobbly and wet” “A bug it’s hard and black” “let’s see how many flowers we can get out”” I see three spiders they are tiny”.

 

 

 

 

 

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Sensory Play

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Today the children found a packet of marshmallows and were keen to explore and investigate them.

 

Using an iPad they researched what things they could make. We found a recipe for marshmallow playdough so we chose that.

The children measured out the marshmallows and poured some vegetable oil into a bowl.

The recipe asked for the marshmallows to be melted and the children asked how they would do this. They talked about it and used the microwave in the staff room to do this.

After 30 secs the microwave pinged and they were excited to see what the marshmallows looked like. They noticed that they had all melted but looked hot.

They brought the bowl back to the playroom and added some cornflour to the mix. Using their super muscles they took turns at mixing it.

It’s very soft
It’s sticky

The children enjoyed exploring the texture of this new play dough and by adding dried oranges and lemons added to their sensory experience.

Expressive Arts

Colourful Fingers

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The children in the Toddler Room are always very expressive and creative so when we found some very colourful finger paints in one of the cupboards in the playroom they were keen to try them out.

At first they were very careful, using only one finger, testing out each colour.

They experimented with different colours, making swirls on their paper.

Very quickly they started to use their whole hands, feeling the paint between their fingers.

Its cold and squishy
Blue paint.

Small swirls with one finger became huge swirls and mark making with a whole hand.

Oh look at my colourful hands too
Pink hands

All the children had loads of fun painting with their fingers and hands and were very excited to see their finished artwork hanging up drying ready to take home.