Soapy Gloop

This morning I decided to try a new sensory play experience with the children that two of my childminder friends were talking about at playgroup.  It was so simple, and a really lovely activity, and as an added bonus the cleaning up afterwards was a doodle!!

Mix together cornflour and washing up liquid - that is it, done!  I didn't know the quantities so I just guessed and got there in the end - my advice is add the washing up liquid slowly and mix it with your hands - eventually it will come together and form a sort of dough.  

The (newly named) soap gloop was a fabulous sensory experience - you can mould it into shapes, squish it, snap it and stretch it - and it smells fabulous!  And when you have finished playing all you need is running water to wash your hands and they are then squeaky clean!  The children loved it, and so did I!

Puffy Paint Poppies

I now have mainly very young children in my care during the day, which means that most of my celebration planning is now 'meaningless' - in that the children are oblivious to what we are celebrating and why.  However I feel that it is nice to tie in our activities to the celebration if possible.

Had I had older children in my care we would have been doing lots of talking and activities leading up to Remembrance Sunday, Albie is currently very interested in it and we have been doing lots of talking about it and looking at old photos from World Wars 1 and 2.

I decided today that we could do a painting activity as we haven't painted for a few weeks.  As E is 9 months old most things go in her mouth, so I decided to repeat an activity that we haven't done for a while - painting with home made puffy paint, which is 100% edible!  To tie the activity in with Remembrance Sunday (very loosely) I coloured the paint red and green - the same colours as the poppies.

The first thing that E did was suck on the paint brush!  Although the paint is edible, I don't imagine that it is tasty, so after the first time, E didn't attempt to taste the paint again!  E then had lots of fun squishing the paint over the paper.

Once E had finished her masterpiece I microwaved it for a few seconds to make it puff up - however as she had smeared the paint on on the paper it wasn't quite thick enough to puff up, so it just became hard and flaky - yay, I invented flaky paint, I just need to think of a use for it now!!!!

Just look at that smile, E does make me laugh!

Soapy Slime

Today's activity was really good fun, and I think it might be top of my list of sensory activities - it feels DEVINE!

J helped to measure the soap flakes and water out and he poured them into a big mixing bowl.  Then J helped me to mix the mixture using our electric whisk.  J was amazed that the teeny flakes disappeared and in their place was a huge quantity of white fluffy soapy slime!

J mixed in some food colouring and then pronounced that he had made ice cream!  Initially he used a spatula to mix the soapy slime and the food colouring, but once he got stuck in with his hands there was no stopping him.

The after school children also got stuck in to the soapy slime, they also loved squishing it with their fingers, and T enjoyed smothering it all over his arms too.

And the bonus of this activity was that the clean up operation was quite easy!!!

Blind Painting

In honour of the Paralympics starting tonight, I planned a 'blind painting' activity.  Today I only had J aged 36 months and M aged 26 months, so anything too complicated is too old for them, I thought this activity was perfect as it involves painting, which they both adore!

We spoke about being blind, what it means, and how we like our working eyes.  J said he "wouldn't like to be blind".

I got out the painting things and the children became VERY excited!  Everything was ready, and we were at the stage where they normally dive on in and start splattering paint about, when I told them to wait!  We were going to try painting as though we were blind!!!

I then produced a tea towel and a peg to blindfold the children!

J thought it was funny and he giggled lots whilst being blindfolded, though he didn't apply much paint to the paper.

M wasn't impressed with being blindfolded and immediately tried to remove the tea towel, though I gently coaxed his hands to the paper and handed him the brush, so he instinctively began painting.  

M wasn't as cautious as J when he was blindfolded, whereas J just painted his brush on the paper a few times, M painted just as though he could see, even attempting to reapply paint to his brush - which he needed a little help with!

After a couple of minutes I removed the blindfolds and the children continued painting, having a wonderful time!

Planning - what planning?!

Planning according to the EYFS is not my strong point; I actually do lots of planning for the children in my care, I think about what we haven't tried before, activities we haven't done for a long time, activities to meet the children's current interests and their next steps, new places to visit, etc.  I just don't document it too well!  I never have, I intend to try, however lots of my plans remain within my head rather than on paper!  I believe that this is to no detriment to the children whatsoever, as far as I can see it will only ever affect my Ofsted inspection grade, which I can live with!


Today I planned to do messy play with shaving foam - this is something we haven't done for a while, the children love it, I planned to incorporate mark making and concentrate on adding colours to the shaving foam and discuss the individual colours and the results once we mixed colours together.  How clever of me to plan such a wonderful, enjoyable and educational activity all rolled into one!


The children however had other ideas!


Yes they jumped at the chance to play with the shaving foam, yes they did make marks (briefly) in the foam, and yes they (briefly) were interested in the colours we added.


However both Albie and J had the most fun of all smearing the foam all over themselves, the table, the walls, the floor, the windows, and me if I stood still for long enough!  I provided a bowl of clean water for the children to wash their hands and a clean towel for them to dry themselves afterwards.  The children used the water to stamp in!  They then added water to the foam to make it watery, and they added foam to the water to make it bubbly!  They then tipped the water out to stamp in it!  Albie had the great idea to mop up the foamy puddles with the clean towel, then 'clean' anything remotely static in the garden with the wet towel!


Today's activity has reenforced to me that no matter how much I plan an activity, the children will always do what they want to do and will lead the activity their own way.  Which also makes me wonder am I actually doing the wrong thing in not documenting all of my planning before we do the activity?


A wonderful time was had by all!