CHALK WORLD CABLE DRUM

I have finally got around to painting our cable drum. We decided to paint it in blackboard paint for versatility.


Today its a train on the top and cars at the bottom...the kids were able to chalk the road werever they wanted it.

 We used our TUFF TRAY to draw a background city. Can you see the planes above ready for take off?

I found the rocks in the garden and painted them as little buildings.

Chalkboard today, car track tomorrow (below)....the possibilities are endless

GEOBAND FUN

 GEOBAND FUN

 Today we extened our geoband fun by putting clear geoboards on the lightbox then adding sensory rings for added fun

 something about the glow from the lightbox that draws you in

The kids were eagar to stretch the bands over this new tool 


i wonder what other resources could be added....

KINETIC SAND BUILDERS 

If you have ever played with Kinetic sand you will understand how great this sand is...you can mould, sculpt and then it just falls through your hands. 
Today we added mini bricks to our Kinetic sand for added  fun. 

 The kids enjoyed stalking the bricks with the sand pretending it was cement and it had just the right texture to mould the bricks together perfectly....

I used a glass tray for the sand and we put fake grass and matts undernieth for extra imaginary play. It also stopped the assesories getting covered in sand :)

SENSORY EXPLOSION SKILLS TRAY

 SENSORY EXPLOSION

Today we practised our skills and what better way than with an explosion of colours..i gave the kids lots of different tools so they could explore threading, scooping, pouring and sorting.

fine motor skills using child size chop sticks to pick up tiny pasta shells





I had included lots of different tools for the kids to experiment as they sorted and moved the pasta and rice about.

Melting snowmen indoors

Still no snow here in West Sussex so we decided to make our own snowmen to melt.

We started by mixing 1 cup of shaving foam and half a cup of water. We added a few jewels for the kids to retrieve once they had melted the snowmen.

Once the snowmen were frozen the kids were excited to start. I gave them mini droppers and food colour to colour the snowmen.

They looked great. Once the kids were ready to melt the snowmen we just added water.

The children were able to retrieve the jewels that had been hidden.

The ice snow palace

The kids have been getting excited with the hope of snow over christmas so i decided to bring our snow theme out sooner than planned. I wanted a snow scene that combined construction, discovery and imagination.

It was an instant hit with all ages who renamed it The polar express.. 

We used sugar, shaving foam and  glass gems. The ice palace was made from an old sand mould we had. We also used some old moonsand moulds.

I wanted the children to feel the coldness of ice and snow so i had stored some out of date sugar in the fridge.

The mini explorers dived in. They tried different ways to structure the ice sculptures then played a story of a lost polar bear.

The children led the penguins to the ice scating ( a small mirror) rink were they scated as the train wisked past.

The first train was taken away and replaced with a better one called the polar express....Santa came although noone saw him (we never do)  and left gifts in the snow for the passengers to find.

A naughty penguin tried to erupt the ice volcano......the story continues............

Building and melting Olaf

The childen loved filling Olaf with warm hugs the other day. Today we changed this by adding real ice cubes that the children could see melting.

We started with a bowl of ice cubes i had previously made and lots of sqeezy tweezers so everyone could help.

The children were eager to fill him up. We filled him a few times before everyone decided to watch him melt.

crawl2explore

Such a fun activity and once the children were fed up building him we timed how long it took for him to melt :)