Somewhere over the rainbow….there’s cloud dough!

Seeing a recipient for dough on Facebook, of all places, I was inspired to jazz up the usual play dough we see every week. Usually play dough includes flour, salt, oil and water, and requires skill in mixing it together in order to get the correct consistency.

But imagine my delight when I read the list of ingredients for this new dough, it was only 2 items long:

• Corn flour
• Hair conditioner

The children and I began by mixing coconut conditioner and corn flour. After some kneading and manipulating it did indeed resemble dough. Many of the Burrowers were fascinated by the subtle differences between this dough and play dough. This dough has a 'crunchier' feel to it, which lent itself wonderfully to encouraging and extending the children's narrative. We spoke of 'squeezing' and 'crunching' the dough.

The scent and colour added another level of discovery to their play. When we tried the pomegranate conditioner the dough was suddenly pink and very smelly!

Apologies if any of the toddlers come home with slightly pink or fruity smelling hands, at least you know they're clean!

Please follow us on Pinterest for further brilliant, activity ideas that we have picked up from many other sources around the world.

Rice is Nice!

In the Burrow last week we celebrated Chinese New Year. We did this in a variety of ways; rice paintings, Chinese lanterns and Chinese stencils. The larger aim of this week’s activities was to celebrate and understand cultures and promote an environment of inclusivity. We believe empathy and understanding is crucial to helping a child to develop holistically, so sharing a cultural celebration such as Chinese New Year with the children, greatly helps to promote these sentiments. One activity in particular, the children really loved, was making some coloured rice. We began with uncooked rice in three separate bowls. As children started to arrive they were very inquisitive about what the rice was for. We had three basic food colourings, red, green and yellow. M and C sat with me at the table with spoons at the ready! I poured some colouring into their bowls and the mixing began. When the rice was covered C, B and I transported the rice into a warm cupboard to let it dry.

Whilst playing with the rice they used their senses of sight, hearing and touch - which made me think, how best I could incorporate smell! So over the weekend I made some more colourful rice, going for a more vibrant blue, pink and green. This time I added a dash of peppermint flavouring so the children could use their sense of smell whilst playing. I brought the rice in on Tuesday making sure it was 100% dry (so we had no stained coloured fingers!) What a hit again! It’s great how this activity has attracted and interested the children in the Burrow for two weeks, watching them use all their senses whilst they are exploring.

Whilst playing with the rice, “A” said to me, “Look Nic, they are bouncing.” She let the rice pour out of her hand from a height and then let the grains fall into the tray.

It amazes me how something as simple as rice can begin to form the foundations of understanding key concepts such as volume and the differences between liquids and solids and therefore gradually help children to understand how the world works. The more links we can facilitate, the greater the understanding. That’s why as a practitioner I try to use questioning to further understanding and strengthen learning. For example, “What happens if we pour the rice from higher up?” or “Does the rice run down hill?’ From these simple activities, problem solving, creative thinking and language development are just some of the areas covered and explored.

And like the legend of the “chessboard,” who knows where and how this understanding might exponentially grow?

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

With that in mind, The Burrow practitioners have been focusing on the children's imaginations and really allowing them to follow and act out their thoughts.

During song box a little boy asked if we could sing "Wheels on the bus" which then made me think….. Let's go to Weston Super Mare on a bus!

So we set out the chairs into a 'bus' and I told the children we were off to the seaside! We all sat down and put our seat belts on ready for the long journey to the coast and then we were off! One child started to sing "Wheels on the bus" so I joined in the singing, which then encouraged other children. I used lots of different words and expression to encourage the children's emergent language.  M then said "I see lots of clouds, it might rain."

We then arrived at the seaside and I asked the children what they normally do at the coast.

"I eat ice cream" W said, so that was it, off we went to the ice cream van where Nic was standing behind the gate! We all ordered chocolate ice cream followed by a splash in the sea and making sandcastles.

On Wednesday we had a mixture of younger and older children in so I gave the children an option of where to go. "Moon, Moon" W said. We counted down to ten and BLAST OFF we were flying through the clouds. I started to shake as we took off and H joined in who is not even two yet! When we landed on the moon I asked what we could see, "Aliens" J answered. So off we went, looking for them!

On both trips the children acted out and commented on the weather, the scenery and the customs relevant to them and their families, as well as developing concepts totally alien to them (excuse the pun!)

Our adventures to the seaside and moon, were initiated by the children and as practitioners we simply facilitated and modelled their learning. The children had the time to play and explore their lines of thought, which at their age is crucial in making sense of the world around them and embedding deep learning.

All we really needed were some chairs and our imaginations! So seeing as this wet weather is set to stay, I wonder where your imaginations will take you this weekend. I don't know about you, but I'm off to the sun!

Lauren

Blackberry Picking

We are very lucky at Free Rangers to be blessed with a cycle track in very close proximity that’s rich in bramble bushes full of large juicy blackberries.The children in the Burrow have had the chance to pick their own, and sample the trials and tribulations of foraging for these black jewels. Valarie our Food Resource Manager at Free Rangers mentioned about a blackberry jelly she intended to make in the kitchen, so we jumped at the chance to take our little fruit pickers along the cycle track to see what we could find. When we have snack in the Burrow, the children receive fruit in front of them on the table. How did this fruit get to them? Where did it come from? By allowing the children to be a part of the production of their food (our nursery garden is key to this also), it begins to teach them about the journey their food goes through to get it to their plates. The first task was to let 10 bouncing toddlers know what sort of adventure we were about to take, of course as soon as we mentioned it there was a rush of putting wellies on and getting our collection pots.

Once we were all ready I opened the gates to different setting to that of the nursery, however it didn’t look like any blackberries would be growing in the car park, so we all ventured into the farm where some were located. These weren’t immediately highlighted to the children, to see if they could spot any themselves. One little girl ran over to the first blackberry bush we discovered excitedly exclaiming: “I found a blackberry!” She understood straight away what we were looking for and showed she had understood what our adventure was all about. It was clear the discovery had made her happy and picked one straight away, however this blackberry didn’t manage to reach the cups it went straight into her mouth! Before all the children started picking the berries, we first had to explain some important rules about foraging. Could we pick green or red blackberries? We let the children know that only black berries were to be picked, as the green and red would be very yucky in our tummies! The children noticed the blackberries had sharp thorns and stinging nettles growing around them. A few of the older children knew the stinging nettles and brambles would hurt them, so they learnt to identify what they looked like so they could avoid harm. When we venture out of the nursery we always explain to the children about all the hazardous plants that we might encounter, for example Lords and Ladies.

When the children started to get stuck into picking the berries, they didn’t stop! We spent 45minutes along the cycle track picking all the blackberries we could reach. Spending this amount of time outside gave the children lots of exercise and fresh air, running back and forth from bush to bush without them even getting out of breath!

During our blackberry picking, there was lots of talk between the children. The main topic was children telling others that they can’t put green or red blackberries in their mouths. Many of these children put these back into the bush. Other conversations were about picking blackberries at home, it was nice to see the children are able to do this activity at nursery but it is a lot more satisfying knowing that this happens at home. The sharing was also great to see between the children, passing around the pots so we all have a hold without adults having to suggest it. We then spoke about how nutritious the blackberries are, especially because they are organic, full of vitamin C giving the children’s immune systems a good boost and containing plenty of fibre to help with their digestion. When we returned back to nursery, a child took the blackberries up to the kitchen ready to be included into our jelly!

All the children had a fantastic time whilst picking the berries and we eagerly look forward to our next outdoor adventure!

Thanks for reading!

Lauren