The Grassy Farm Barn - Enhancing imagination and learning

Are your children fascinated with Animals? Mine are.
Its a great idea to follow a child's lead and provide them with enriching play areas based on their interests. If they're interested in something they pay more attention, enjoy themselves more and this means that they learn more.
Both Dimples & Miss Cherub love animals so I set up this little Pretend play barn yard.
If you missed it, I have this post that goes through WHY Pretend Play is so important in early childhood and the benefits of it.

I still strongly advocate the benefits of pretend play  so following the interests of both Dimples and Miss Cherub I set up this Farm barn play area on a low lying coffee table that they both could access freely and explore easily. I aimed to use materials that resembles a real life farm yard in order to capture their imagination and attention for longer more enjoyable pretend play. I think it worked! They love it.
I added some artificial grass covering the play table to give it a realistic look and feel. This enhances the imaginary play experience and makes the play area more inviting. I then added a pebble patterned mat (it was a small shower mat), a blue foam cut out in the shape of a pond and a fake silk plant to really give the Grassy Farm area a realistic feel.

The farm area is complete with a little plastic barn and of course a variety of plastic farm animals. Both Dimples and Miss Cherub have enjoyed the area and engaged in pretend play together and alone at different levels of play. Dimples, nearly 5 has a vivid imagination and pretends it a real working farm, the dog does the herding, the sheep need to be sheared and the cows eat grass, the rooster crows at the crack of dawn, the tractor maintains the pastor, the pig rolls on the edge of the pond and so on. He labels the animals and is learning the different names based on the animals gender eg. a sow, a boar & a piglet.  In the book shelf next to it I have some farm yard board books for him to expand on.

Where as Miss Cherub (nearly 1) explores the texture of the grass with her finger tips (and sometimes her mouth) and the feel of the foam pond, she is following Dimples through imitation and makes Moo sounds, "roff roff" barking sounds and she gets the horses to trott up and down clicking her tongue and jiggling around as if she is riding a horse. Its so cute to watch her learning through observing the way big brother plays. This also gives me an opportunity to introduce new vocabulary to her by labeling the animals for her.

Learning Concepts:

Pretend Play & Developing imaginary play scenes

Early vocabulary

Turn taking and sharing,

Learning animal names, sounds, diet and place in the farm.

Exploring real life concepts

Other ways to create a play space to enhance imaginative play
A fun Science Lab conducting real experiments
Magical Gnome Garden
Banking & Sorting: using real money & a trip to the bank
Sensory Play: Ice cream dough

Have you used any materials in a play area to immitate real life?

Happy Adventures 

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DIY Ribbon Tickle Time Baby Toy

Babies just adore having things brush over their face. A classic Baby play game that everyone has done before is to get a sheet or light scarf and throw it up over a baby letting it slowly drift down and brush over their face, or playing peek-a-boo with it - Lots of first giggles here! 

Miss Cherub loves these type of games and I love playing them with her because she giggles and smiles and coo's in excitement, she throws her arms and legs around as if she's going to take off. It is so funny to watch.

The other thing she loves doing at the moment, which shows her developing pincer grasp and fine motor skills, is to " read" the tags on any toys; carefully grabbing and inspecting with great focus the writing on tag and flicking back and forth if there is a few together. I remember Dimples doing this as a baby and I thought it was just so clever & adorable to watch. 

This DIY tag toy was made to conquer both the fun of tickle time and the sensory aspect of having soft things fall and brush over babies face and the fine motor aspect of flicking through 'tags'.

In her treasure basket shes been exploring a bunch of different materials and textures. I added this DIY taggy toy that she loves and plays with each day. It is a new favourite. 

It is a Link with ribbons tied to it. 

So easy- Make sure the link is baby safe and make sure all ribbons are double tied and of course, be aware that any long ribbons pose a strangulation hazard. I recommend always supervising and interacting with the baby as they play, its a great opportunity to foster a connection through play and watch them imitate you and learn through play. 

I limited the ribbons to about 10-15 cm long and I tried to find a variation of ribbons. 

Different colours, widths, textures, patterns, sizes and styles of ribbons make an interesting toy to explore. 

Miss Cherub had such a great time with it. She shook it and pulled it apart, swung it around, put it over her own head and then slowed down inspecting each ribbon in details, trying to grasp the ends and pull them into individual lengths, she passed it back and forth in her hands watching the way the ribbons fell. 

It was all so interesting time after time.

Peek-a-boo Baby!

We also used it as a tickle toy while she is both sitting and laying down; While Miss Cherub was sitting i put it over her head and she tensed as it tickled the back of her neck, she giggled and tried looking around. Her facial expressions were so funny to watch.

While she was laying she fluttered her eyes as it gently brushed over her face, then she was excited and kicking around in anticipation waiting for it to fall again. Lots of fun.

Baby Learning Concepts:
Sensory Play
Anticipation
Developing Pincer grasp
Fine motor skills
Exploring different colours, texture, patterns and size ribbons
Laughter & fun in play

Happy Adventures

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Salad Spun Solar System - Extreme Paint

Apparently Pluto isn't important any more?
I know I learnt this stuff at school but my memory has failed me.
When Dimples got his Tag reading system on his 4th birthday I also got him a solar system booklet, he loves it and often plays, well "reads" by himself so it shouldn't have been a surprise when he told me that Venus was the hottest planet.
Silly me jumped in and said "isn't Mercury the one closest to the sun" well yes but Dimples was quick to tell me Venus is hottest because its cloud keep the heat in.

This conversation lead to my 4 year old teaching me all these things about our solar system that his tag reader had taught him. Fancy That! Then this lead to putting together a large floor puzzle we had and pulling out a space poster with matching stickers then some extended learning through Extreme Painting; The Salad Spinning technique.

Using a salad spinner, some circle paper and paint. We put the paper in with the right colours on top, shut the lid and spun. Dimples though that was the best part, he was rapidly spinning the planets around with wide open eyes telling me this one is going to be awesome! This one is going to be the best, I am spinning it so so very fast. Its a pretty easy painting technique and all the mess is confined in the salad tub making for easy clean up. We went through pointing out the planets on the floor puzzle, the tag reader diagram, the poster and then the ones we put in the salad spinner reading all the facts as we went. Dimples really engaged in the process, even to the extent of repeating anything I read to him.

All the Salad Spun Planets were put out in order and he set out his own solar system drawing rings around Saturn and the asteroid belt between Mars & Jupiter. Saturn and Earth worked the best in the salad spinner, it works best with running blobs of paint and with some even spread over your planet otherwise the paper can end up flying up the side of the salad bowl.

I think I learnt more doing this then I did at school, or my memory has failed me. One thing I noticed was the Pluto wasn't even on any of the solar system info anymore, apparently it is a dwarf planet with several others.

Happy Adventures