7 replies to this topic

[naomi]

Happy New Year everyone.

Our topic in Reception this half term is 'Lets Pretend'. Has anyone got any innovative ideas?

Thanks

Naomi

[Susan]

HI Naomi,
I think I would split this into at least 2 different sub themes, you could "lets pretend to be...." or "lets pretend at the......"?
Your choice of pretend characters or locations could then be determined by your resources and your children's interests?
You could also take stories as a starting point.

I had great fun with monsters as a sub theme of a Fantasy theme, starting with "The Gruffalo" and we then diversified to dinosaurs.

You could pretend to be Princesses and Kings and Queens, etc etc. Pirates?

[Magenta]

We regularly use our 'magic carpet' to go on jounrneys - the chn. make up the magic words to make it go up/come down.
I start off by saying I can see the local Kwik Save, park, train track etc. the chn. are brilliant at coming up with scenarios- anything from a trip to Macdonalds to a castle guarded by a dragon.
Most of the time the chn. come up with the storylines and act out making sandcastles a the seaside or fighting the giant - leads on to lots of language work as I ask 'what can you smell, hear, feel, taste? etc. we get lots of descriptive words - especially if they choose monsters! Great for displays too.
We often use these stories as a stimulus for class writing/individual writing and have made class book 'Our Magic Carpet Adventures'.

Sorry to ramble on, but its one of my favourite activities!

[Susan]

:D Sounds fantastic, Magenta, not a ramble at all!
Do you have a carpet that you sit on and how many children do you do this with?

[Linda McDowell]

We do a similar thing but using the story The Blue Balloon by Mick Inkpen. We blow up a balloon and read the story and talk about all the different places we could go. We then let the children draw a picture of where they would like to go if they were carried away by a balloon. They do this on a piece of blue card cut in the shape of a balloon. We then use this for display.
Linda

[Magenta]

Susan, we have a lovely piece of Sari material that is placed in the centre for some children to sit on, then as long as we're holding hands we can all go.
We did this today with 26 reception - went to the seaside - put on swimming costumes, suncream, toes bitten by crabs, heard the rough sea, sharks in the water, and a sand monster!, coast guard rescue, sandy sandwich picnic - rescued by a barbecue! made sandcastles - some didn't work as the sand was dry, found shells and starfish, finally someone had some money so we had ice-creams - had to work out how much money we needed.
All of this from the children - some didn't make suggestions but all got involved in the role play.

[ASPK]

Wow! Sounds fab, Magenta. I'm going to have to give this one a go for sure. Thanks for sharing.

[Magenta]

Let us know how it goes ASPK.