Thursday 18 January 2018

Polydron, Dice & Poker Chips - Take 2!


I wrote a post back in June about how adding some dice to our Polydron had made it become a much more versatile resource than it already was - I love Polydron and the plan for this year is to invest in more of it. 
Today one child decided to build on the floor with it rather than up on the Tuff Spot, he began by laying all the squares down, others then joined him snaking out into the hallway. They all worked really well together and there was lot son chat about what they building, what they could add etc. When the squares were exhausted they began to add the triangles to the outside, then the Pentagons and these allowed the 'snake' to go around the corner and then they decided to add the dice and finally the poker chips. 
This activity kept this group of children busy and engaged for up to 2 hours and made me realise that it is important to allow the children the opportunity to build on a flat surface too. As we need the tables on dinner days, perhaps on a lunch day we could have it outside and remove some of the tables to all the children to build on this scale again in the classroom.

Here is the last post I did on the Polydron & dice: https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/dice-what-great-addition.html

Wednesday 17 January 2018

'Snow' such thing as bad weather!

Bear Woods in the Snow.
Every week we have an outdoor day when the class spent the majority of the day outdoors no matter what the weather and this week it was a cold, icy and a little snowy - not very deep or fluffy snow but snow none the less.
The children enjoyed exploring the playground and making mini snowmen, balancing on the crates and tree stumps even though they were slippy and pulling each other on the plastic sleds.
 

Instead of a big fire we did some tin can cooking, which I first heard about from Martin over at Highway Farm Activity Centre, the children enjoyed dipping apple and mini marshmallows into the melted chocolate - next time we'll use cocktail sticks instead of skewers.

Before heading inside for a story and a lovely hot dinner, some of the children who were still in their rain gear, headed up the hill above the nursery to visit Bear Woods and make some snow angels on the grass.