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Showing posts from April, 2016

Roundup of some of our homemade loose parts play

For this month’s play roundup, here is a quick photo post of a few of our favourite homemade loose parts* for play. (*In the early childhood education setting, loose parts are simply open ended materials or items that can be combined, redesigned or lined up in multiple ways for play).   Yoghurt bottle tops I built up this collection gradually over time from the squeezy yoghurt pouches I pack in Nathan’s lunch box. I get Nathan to save them and take them home for me to wash and stash away in our collection. The children enjoy playing with these in a myriad of ways--colour sorting, counting, pretend cooking, lining up in patterns and so on. ***** Coloured pasta You can find heaps of DIY articles on Pinterest for making your own coloured pasta. Just regular dry pasta mixed with some food colouring and vinegar. They make a very pretty collection of loose parts for open ended play. Apart from playing pretend cooking and sorting with these, the children also thread them on string...

Funtastic ‘Bunchems’ Play Invitation

{ This Product Talk is brought to you by Nuffnang and Funtastic ‘Bunchems’ } At our place we do a fair amount of art & craft and sensory & messy play. It does involve a bit of work, especially with the clean up. But the children all love it and it’s good for them too… getting all their creative juices flowing, practising their hand-eye coordination skills, stimulating their various senses. Though sometimes, it’s also nice to have a break from all the clean up and mess-management. So when I came across ‘Bunchems’, I was immediately intrigued. All the creative, crafty, hands-on play with some funky-looking material without any of the icky-sticky-gooey mess. The Bunchems Mega Pack comes with: 400 pieces of little Bunchems; 36 accessories to embellish your creations with; And one ideas booklet. I laid out everything on our big play table as a ‘Bunchems Play Invitation’. My little ones were so excited they could hardly finish their afternoon tea in their eagerness to begi...

I love your funny face

If there was one person in the world who could beat me at being a drama queen, it’s this little person… Most of the time, it’s the best fun ever having a little drama queen. But there are times when we get a bit too much drama to handle. But nothing that a little cuddle time time with teddy can’t fix. ***** One of our current favourite family games is ‘Funny Face’. Basically I just call out an expression or emotion (“make a happy/sad/angry/scared/surprised face”) and the kids would make that face. Two-and-a-half year old Grace is pretty good at this game. Though sometimes she and her big brother crack each other too much they end up in a mess of giggles and silliness to keep up with the game. ***** One morning a few weeks back, I headed over to Grace’s bedroom to get her out of bed as part of our usual morning routine. This was the sight that greeted my eyes… { Crime scene re-enacted by the primary suspect } Me : Grace!!! What happened??? Who did this??? Grace : Errrr… Gra...

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