What would you put in your play box/bag?

[Rufus]

Later on in the year I am delivering a SCITT session on play. I would like to give the students (some of which will have had little experience of EYFS) the opportunity to play themselves. I thought about each group having a play box/bag with open ended resources in or play activities to do....and then my brainwave stopped! I thought it would be good for them to actually play and then think about all the learning that took place.

So far I have thought about: a box containing things to make fruit kebabs; a den making box; a bag of junk materials for modelling.

I'd appreciate any good ideas people have to add, thanks.

[Guest]

love the den making kit idea - in fact liking the idea for a parent session! let us know how it goes?

 

collection of loose parts, tubs, trays etc?

collections of sticks, the book stick man and some decorating bits and bobs

various tubes, large diameter bamboo, masking tape, different sized balls and marbles for marble runs

cookery box - ingredients and utensils; rotary whisks, power whisk/blender, graters, sieves, scales (digital or mechanical...balance ones would be fab!) scissors/knives (give them blunt/plastic ones too and let them struggle - my pet hate is not letting children have the proper equipment but expecting them to do the job efficiently!)

communication bottle items or sensory bottles

torches, white sheets for shadow play (I can't imagine they won't do something 'naughty'!)

mud kitchen stuff?

oo could give them a load of pre-cut templates and take them down the 'adult led' route or ask them to paint a flower and tell then the rhyme - then let them loose on the other stuff to show them how much better it is!

are you wanting to 'steer' them or let them do their own thing?

meant to ask first - what's SCITT? (hope it's not obvious!)

Edited April 25, 2014 by gingerbreadman

[apple]

Have you seen the book 'Beautiful Stuff'?One of my all time favourites and the ideas from this we have done many a successful parent/child workshop with.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beautiful-Stuff-Learning-Found-Materials/dp/0871923882

Your idea of giving the participants a bag with open ended resources in reminded me of this book. I went on a course where they used the book and the open ended resources (anything and everything from bottle tops of all materials and types, tinsel, natural objects, small plastic bits and pieces, old jewellery the list is endless) as 'play tools' and let the teachers lose without giving any direction about how to use or what to do with them - this is very much what the children do when we provide similar resources.

I think you idea is super to enable the adults to 'play'. You may also like to provide other such provocations such as something that may ignite curiosity and enquiry - maybe a circuit kit where they have to put the things together themselves; or an object of curiosity such as a fish from the fish mongers - something they might not have expected; maybe a letter or problem to solve from a character - again something that maybe you would do with the children. Does this make sense?

Sounds like a really exciting way to learn - can I just ask what a SCITT session is please?

[apple]

Gingerbread that is a great idea to get them to do a very directed piece of 'art' maybe get one group to do a directed one e.g. decorate a pre cut gingerbread man template (had to use you Gingerbread) and another group to make their own then compare the process and outcomes and discuss the pros and cons of such activities (can't think that there would be many pros).

Gingerbread what is the poem you refer to?

[Guest]

Flowers are Red
by Harry Chapin

The little boy went first day of school, He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper, For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. What you doin' young man, I'm paintin' flowers he said
She said... It's not the time for art young man, And anyway flowers are green and red
There's a time for everything young man, And a way it should be done
You've got to show concern for everyone else, For you're not the only one

And she said...

Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green,There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow, So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said..

You're sassy, There's ways that things should be And you'll paint flowers the way they are

So repeat after me.....

And she said...
Flowers are red young man, Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow, So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner, She said.. It's for your own good..
And you won't come out 'til you get it right
And are responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely, Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher, And this is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does, And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school, And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin', She said...Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower, So let's use every one

But that little boy painted flowers, In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why, This is what he said..

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen. gosh, brings a lump to the throat reading it again!

ABC did a 'dismantling' session of old electronic equipment

Apple I'm going to have a look for that book - sounds wonderful, thanks for the link

Edited April 25, 2014 by gingerbreadman

[apple]

blimey - powerful stuff. Reminds me of another book - "Tilly Beany' - similarly to the little boy in the poem that had the creative stuffing knocked out of her, but luckily for her she had some other super adults around to make sure she found it again.

One of my teaching practices was at a school where the reception teacher was just like the one in the poem :-( The had done the same display for Christmas for years and wouldn't allow me to do anything else !!!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Tilly-Beany-Annie-Dalton/dp/1405200561

[apple]

Hi Rufus - still perplexed about SCITT meaning? Can you enlighten us please? or does anyone else know what it means?

[Guest]

Not sure but doesn't SCITT stand for school centered initial teacher training x

[Rufus]

Thanks for the ideas people, great starting points for me. It has got me thinking about splitting the class and letting some groups explore free play and others prescribed play, which I hadn't considered before.

Yes..school centred initial teacher training is SCITT, sorry I should have explained that. So I will have 25 students from a range of backgrounds but all wanting to teach in the 4-7 range.

[Rea]

You could link play to our every day lives as adults. We all do it to learn how things work, new mobile phones dont come with an instruction booklet anymore, you have to download the details. No-one does though, we switch on and play with it until we've grasped the basics then continue to play as we need to know how to use another function. Same with most electrical things we buy. You can cover the different learning styles too tell one group how to make something work, show another group the same thing and let another group be hands on, let each group relate to the others the instructions: see and forget, hear and remember, do and understand :1b

[Guest]

I suppose if you are looking to demonstrate the power of open ended play for young children, then give each group the same large collection of random things with no direction/steer at all and see what each comes up with - complete with analysis of their learning

 

I'm guessing if they were able to work in different rooms then their 'end product'/learning analysis would be different - and if it wasn't, you could then take them on the journey that we, as adults, look at some items in a certain way, with a certain function and that's all we see; whereas young children see a multitude of potential - cue the Ted talk about changing education paradigms /school kills creativity

 

It's a great thing you are going to be giving these students - is it a one off Rufus, or will you be teaching them regularly?

[Rufus]

I suppose if you are looking to demonstrate the power of open ended play for young children, then give each group the same large collection of random things with no direction/steer at all and see what each comes up with - complete with analysis of their learning

 

I'm guessing if they were able to work in different rooms then their 'end product'/learning analysis would be different - and if it wasn't, you could then take them on the journey that we, as adults, look at some items in a certain way, with a certain function and that's all we see; whereas young children see a multitude of potential - cue the Ted talk about changing education paradigms /school kills creativity

 

It's a great thing you are going to be giving these students - is it a one off Rufus, or will you be teaching them regularly?

The session is a one off and the only one they get specifically on play so I want it to be hands on and memorable, not just heavy theory. I will also be a tutor for some of them , guiding them in their teaching practise.

[sunnyday]

Something that I still remember from my initial training - we were given some lovely art materials to do whatever we wanted with........shortly after we had become deeply engrossed - tutor said "stop now, we are going outside" and sure enough we all had to leave our 'projects' and traipse off outside this was, obviously, to show us how that feels when we do that to children........

Another - similar story - this was 'block' training i.e. use of 'big blocks' - we were split into groups and tasked with building something that represented a given 'traditional tale' - so my little group began work on 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' - we were having a brilliant time with this - great cooperation and collaboration - tutor kept wandering past making 'inane' suggestions - I 'bit' and finally said something like "go away, we're doing quite well without your help" - of course, that was the reaction he was waiting for

[Inge]

Over the years have attended several similar things, funny the ones you remember. Most vivid is one where all the scissors were for left hand use...took all a while of struggling and frustration before working it out...made all very aware of the need for correct tools being available to aid any processes. Along with being interrupted all the way through with comments and questions.