What's In Your Tuff Spot This Week?

[narnia]

I have just bought my very first one.................from Focus for £14.99, so now I'm going to have to pinch all your lovely ideas to make best use of it!!

[Guest]

Anyone got any good ideas for what I can put in that is ok if eaten in quite large quantities!! I have a tuffspot outside which covers a missing paving stone and my class (SEN school), one in particular will eat anything. We've had jelly, porridge oats, pasta, rice and shredded paper.

 

 

 

We have been there too wih a child who had additional needs eating everyhting!!!! - a firm favourite recently was cheap ice cream cornets and spoons/scoops plus value type weetabix, cheerios, rice crispies - hours of pretend ice cream making.

[Guest]

Ahh see we're not at the level of role play yet, it would literally just be at a sensory level, but that's an interesting idea, thanks!

[Guest]

we had cooked spaghetti dyed with food colouring last week and cornflour today. The spaghetti was a favourite. They all thought they were exotic worms! Also had chopsticks for them to use...very funny to watch!

another favourite was an ice balloon in the tuff spot and the children poured salt onto it and warm water to see what happened. Good for speaking and listening!

[Guest]

Ahh yes, we've had spaghetti and pasta too and in the summer we had an ice balloon which went down well.

 

We've also had various colours and smells of cornflour gloop.

[Guest]

try (not all at once) seeds, herbs, water and little figures, water and little ducks and frogs, water and sand and shells, tea bags to rip up with herbal teas etc with or without teapots and water (cold), jelly, pasta cooked and raw, rice, snow, ice cubes and ice balloons. If you havent tried them , fill balloons with water, freeze them and then peel off the balloon - thats really easy. Put them onto the tuff spot with magnifying glasses, salt, colourants, warm water - anything to experiment with. You can put things inside the ice balloon but they are beautiful just plain. And cost nothing

try the tuff spot with a selection of collage/scrap store materials and just arrange things without the need to glue - get the camera out to record

they are also useful if you have a small remote control toy because you can set challenges and they dont go over the lip

 

it goes on and on - they are so useful

 

good luck

[Guest]

When other people put shaving foam in theirs does it not all just 'disappear' - soryy can't think of the right word but when we have put shaving foam in ours after an hour their is nothing left

[Marion]

I must say I like shaving foam on a table rather than confined

and keep topping up

[Guest]

Lola, we have never had shaving foam disappear

 

It only goes down when the children dont scrap it off their hands and it ends up in the washing up bowl

[Guest]

This week we have had pumpkins seeds, plastic creepy crawlies and a drop of water in our tuff spot!

If you haven't got one already order one from a builders merchants as they are soooo much cheaper than in the catalogues.

We covered the base of our with shiny paper for a mirrored effect

[Susan]

hi High Legh and welcome!

 

I was in a B&Q last weekend and couldnt find one anywhere!

[Guest flutter]

Susan

 

Look in the builders section - open to the outside at our B&Q. They are usually stacked up. Keep looking, they are so useful.

[Guest]

Focus DIY sell them too - our local store had them propped up near all the timber.

[Guest]

We had a whats falling from the trees because its autumn, tuf spot, last week.

Pears, cooking apples,eating apples (from my garden) leaves, conkers ,tree bark,sticks

I expected the children to try to eat the fruit but no they dident.

[Guest]

We had a whats falling from the trees because its autumn, tuf spot, last week.

Pears, cooking apples,eating apples (from my garden) leaves, conkers ,tree bark,sticks

I expected the children to try to eat the fruit but no they dident.

 

This is what we have planned for this week....with the children collecting the items first on a walk.

Last week we had.......flour & water, dinosaurs, wooden building blocks.

I must say that the tuff spot has been one of our most popular purchases and it can be used for almost anything.

[dublinbay]

We had BAKED BEANS in our builder's spot last week!!!!! Yum! Yum!

Only a few children ate some - absolutely swore they didn't but couldn't explain what the red stuff was at the corner of their mouths!!!!

Hmmm! very strange indeed! LOL

lol:

[Guest]

We have found shaving gel rather than foam lasts longer... As for the Tuff spot contents..inside this week we have had rice mix, peas beans etc with spoons, little pots and scoops. Outside we have had vehicles and stones, sand, little people. Smelly plant resources lavender, rosemary, mint etc , Marble run (catches the stray marbles!) We have 3 outside every week and have found that 4 milk crates act as a tuff spot stand to change the height/ interest every now and again.

[Guest]

Wow - have just found this post on tuff spots and am amazed by the wealth of ideas everyone has. Especially like the crates to raise the height outside. Had stopped using ours outside as our playground is a car park and filthy and muddy at the moment so we can`t use the tuff spot as the children can`t sit on the ground to play in it anymore. Now I can use it again.

 

To anyone thinking of buying one I would recommend investing in one from a catalogue. I have a catalogue one and one from a builders merchants. The catalogue one is made of much tougher plastic and is much more durable and will last foerever.

 

One of my favourite ideas in the summer is to put in water, shells, plastic sea animals - crabs, fish etc - shells and real seaweed from the seaside. Although the seaweed dries when you bring it home it goes all lovley and pliable again when in water - it really makes the tough spot smell like the seaside as well.

[Guest]

Hi

 

My most exciting tuff spot activity was making an ice mountain. Sprinkle cornflour over base, add a couple of bags of ice cubes from the supermarket. Pour one or two caps of food colouring, one over each side then sprinkle with glitter and watch! As the ice melts so the food colouring mixes in, the two colours then mix when they meet, the glitter (due to the cornflour) moves to the edge of the melting ice ( - it is really fascinating to watch. I had a steady stream of adults pouring into my room when I did this with my children. Yellow / blue food colouring in a black tuff spot seemed to give a lunar effect! When the pools of water are touched, the glitter immediately mixes. Try adding a little salt to one area, the children love to listen to it crackling. With careful questioning it covers each of the ELG's, not bad for an afternoon's activity - I could actually sit back and do some observations! The next day I added a little more cornflour and for those that wanted, they enjoyed gloop.

 

Sue

[Guest]

Any particular good ideas for 18 months to 2.5 yrs. We have tried shaving foam, which was a huge success, cornflour. But what else works really well for this age group. Lots of ideas are better suited to 3+, so was just wondering if anybody had anything really good for our younger children.

[Andreamay]

rice krispies

They will absolutly love it,baking with them,spooning them in containers etc then when you feel they have had enough add water and listen!!! yes they will eat some but does it matter they eat playdo whcih is much worse for them!!!

Andrea

[Guest]

A shallow amount of water, with some jelly cubes. As the cubes get wet they get slippery. The children try to pick them up and the jelly cubes start pinging out of their hands in all directions - they love it!

[Guest]

We had duplo bricks and small figures, with cars and lots of flour to act as snow

Children loved it

[Guest]

Hi, we (or rather my fab 3-5 room senior)have made ours into a farm. She bought some turf, cut it to fit and has made a farm out of it, its great and the children love it!!

[Guest]

Jurrassic Park - dinosaurs, rocks etc.

[Guest]

I dont have anything in my tray as we are on holiday at the moment. BUT ... I do have ginger nuts and shortbread in my biscuit tin - not for long though with my three children!

 

PS Last week we had soil, small plant pots and plastic garden tools.

 

Sue

[Deb]

Fab ideas, our tuffspot is seriously underused - these ideas have motivated me into aciton. - after that I might even spring into ACTION!

Edited April 8, 2008 by Deb

[Guest]

Small sea creatures and fish, pebbles, shells, plastic plants and most importantly water!

Linda

[skippy]

Some great ideas here, just wondered do you have your tuff spot on the floor or table top?

[Guest]

We sometimes have our tuff spot on the table and sometimes on the floor - one of the fave things in my class is coloured rice funnels spoons, bottles, old comfort bottle lids etc. After the holidays we are going to put clay in it - might make the cleaners a bit happier then usual when we have clay out as it MIGHT be more contained!!