Tag Archives: small world

Discovering Antarctica

It might feel like Antarctica outside this week but in the studio we have been exploring how cold it really is.

This stared with the children discovered some polystyrene in the junk area. We started breaking and cutting it up and soon discovered it looked like snow.

“Ice can crack”

The children started to discuss different animals that like snow conditions. We introduced the artic animals into the play. This sparked more discussion about the different animal.

”Penguins can’t fly”

”Penguins are very good swimmers “

“Penguins can go on the ice”

“I’ve made a home for the penguin”

“All this snow is sticking to my hands”

While watching some beautiful images of Antarctica on the screen we started to create our very own Antarctica.


We watched a short video and discovered that the South Pole is the coldest place on earth. Antarctica is almost entirely covered by ice. It’s the only continent where human don’t live, it’s so cold. Only a few animal can survive the harsh conditions.

As well as being fun Small world play also provides the children time to explore different materials, act out real life scenarios, practice social skills and gain an understanding of the world.

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You have the right to find out things and share what you think with others, by talking, drawing, writing  or in any other way unless it harms or offends other people.

 

 

We are all unique

Today, the children showed a great interest in various stories in the noisy/quiet room.

The stories were about different families and how our families are all unique.


We read some of the stories and then discussed our own families. The children were keen to share what they knew about their own families.

“My family is mummy and daddy and me”

“I have my baby and mummy”

”granny and grandpa and mummy and me and dad”

We used the small world characters to recreate our own families.


We will be looking at all kinds of families in the next couple of weeks and using the small world area to learn about equality and diversity.

This week in the noisy/quiet room

Following on from recent interests, this week in the noisy quiet room the children have enjoyed exploring the farm animals in the small world area.

The children have been using their imagination and role play skills to create their own stories and play using the small world equipment.

”its Old MacDonald’s farm, there is sheep and pigs and cows”

”There is little cows and big cows, small goats too”

”My favourite animal is the pig”

The children have also recently enjoyed building with our wooden train track and talking about all the different places you could go on a train…

   

”You could go to the shops or to a restaurant”

”I go on holidays”

”Trains go so fast”

Small world play is a great way for children to explore their imagination and develop their role play skills. It could represent a real life place like a farm or it could be a completely imaginary world.

 

Why don’t you try some small world play at home?