What's In Your Tuff Spot This Week?

[Panders]

cooked rice would be a problem, cant see how uncooked could be

[Froglet]

My children love uncooked rice in the tuff spot. The caretaker is less keen!

[Guest]

I have posted this before but seems right to post it here!

 

Well ... ... it all started by observing a child who rarely gets involved in craft/collage/junk modelling activities. One day we managed to persuade him to do some glueing - he sat for ages just watching the glue drip off his brush. So, as a PLOD we set up a gloop activity in the Tuff Spot. When the gloop started to dry out, we added water - but too much! So we thought about it and one of the children came up with the idea of adding flour - then in went the glitter (it was Christmas!) ... then some oil ... rice ... (at this point, or thereabouts, one of the children decided it would be a magic potion) food colour - various [we watched the colours as they changed] ... peppermint flavouring ... eggs ... golden syrup ... lemon curd ... rolled oats etc. Then we added little pots, glue spatulas and assorted spoons. Soon the children were all engaged in making their 'potions'. Lastly we added the playdough (which was about to be changed anyway) with knives and forks. So basically - you could use anything - but don't forget to check for allergies! It was a great activity which tipped in and out of adult directed and child initiated. :1b

[mollypiper]

The favourites at the moment in my setting are:

 

Sand, large pebbles, sticks and Bob the Builder/sand vehicles.

 

Sand, treasure like stones, pirate ship and accessories

 

water and lots of bath toys like the plastic ducks/frogs

 

water/sand /porridge oats with a couple of fern plants and dinosaurs

 

I love the idea of standing them on milk crates. We tend to put them on the floor as otherwise takes up 2 tables to lay on top. The stands are very expensive and I too wondered if they would fit properly as we also have ones from DIY shop.

[shazzam]

we often use spaghetti in ours but rather than cooking it which makes it sticky we soak it a while in hot water, this makes it soft and can be squash to form shapes and usually ends up as a ball of dough. much easier to clean up after!

[Madmum]

There are some wonderful ideas here, can I just check though about Health and safety issues? Are there any relating to things like rice, pulses etc? I used dried rice in a tray last year, and one of the teaching assistants was worried/ concerned/ fussing that rice was a risk to kids in case they ate it uncooked?

 

It seemed a bit overcautious to me, but i just wanted to make sure. Is there a list anywhere?

We weren't too sure about lentils and dried kidney beans as they say on them not to be eaten uncooked, so we steer clear!

We do use rice, dry pasta, porridge oats, tea leaves, coloured sand and gems,cloud dough, slime etc among others!

[Guest]

This week we are having shaving foam and glitter (if we have any foam at nursery! I can't remember!) or paint, but with the tuff spot on the floor and welly boots for children to make footprints around the garden area!

Also - wall paper paste mixed up with some green food colouring & green glitter (goes really gloopy) and insects!

[Cait]

Dry sand, various funnels and pots seems to be favourite at the moment, moved on from fine gravel which we enjoyed with dinosaurs for most of last term!

[hopscotch]

Today we had our tuff spot outside with our foam bricks in. We had a couple of small trays of shaving foam and trowels. The children Had great fun spreading their magic cement on the bricks and then building their walls. They asked for the hard hats and cement mixer out. A great morning. We also use them for large scale mark making - rolling patterned balls in paint. 6 children and adult lift the tray and they have to work together to roll the ball,side to side - its great fun. So many ways to,use them

[Guest]

mud!!! and then it was poured over each others hair so that they could 'spike' their hair up and be superheroes. Oh my what a mess and with no running water outside, we had to resort to a watering can temporary shower.

[Miacat3]

Compost, pots and gardening equipment. Very messy and staff moaning about having to sweep up but children had a great time adding wild animals and dinosaurs to the mixture after adding water from water tray.

[Rea]

Sand in mine, but its just for the ferrets

[Guest]

Soon we will be looking at lifecycles, so water, logs, pebbles and stones, the green plants you put in a fish tank and plastic tadpoles and frogs. We also found some green glass nuggets to add to it which looked really effective. Children loved it last year!!

[Guest]

I had an unexpected visitor due yesterday and the Tuff Spot activity (which had been absolutely AMAZING!) had come to a natural end. We had laid out assorted bowls, dishes and spoons and filled the dishes with lots of different cereals as well as ice cream cones - thank you myhenroxanne! The children loved it and got so much out of it. But we had run out of all the cereals and intended putting something else out - just hadn't got around to the 'what'. So, I decided that I would go for the old favourite of the 'Arctic World', but after the last activity it seemed a bit 'flat'; I really wanted more 'spooning' activities (to look impressive for our VIP). Then PING! Got it!

I mixed up lots of snow in different colours, filled up assorted bowls (plastic, ceramic and wicker), made paper cones and added ice cream scoops. Then emptied the sugar strand containers and filled them with glitter (for 'sprinkles') ... ... a perfect 'ice cream parlour' - with 'real' ice cream!

Edited May 3, 2013 by Guest

[Deb]

I had an unexpected visitor due yesterday and the Tuff Spot activity (which had been absolutely AMAZING!) had come to a natural end. We had laid out assorted bowls, dishes and spoons and filled the dishes with lots of different cereals as well as ice cream cones - thank you myhenroxanne! The children loved it and got so much out of it. But we had run out of all the cereals and intended putting something else out - just hadn't got around to the 'what'. So, I decided that I would go for the old favourite of the 'Arctic World', but after the last activity it seemed a bit 'flat'; I really wanted more 'spooning' activities (to look impressive for our VIP). Then PING! Got it!

I mixed up lots of snow in different colours, filled up assorted bowls (plastic, ceramic and wicker), made paper cones and added ice cream scoops. Then emptied the sugar strand containers and filled them with glitter (for 'sprinkles') ... ... a perfect 'ice cream parlour' - with 'real' ice cream!

Hi DevonMaid

Like the sound of both activities. I'm looking for a simple yet engaging activity like this for my EYP assessment coming up. The icecream cones, are they paper or real or plastic?

 

And in the second activity, did you use the fake snow or was it shaving foam?

Thanks

Debbie

[Guest]

We started with real wafer ice cream cones. All ingredients were edible.

For the second activity there were no edible ingredients - the children understood this, even the youngest 3 yr olds. I used fake snow - the type available from TTS which comes in a small tub - you mix 1 measuring spoon to 2 fl oz of water. I chose to use this because it feels really cold, just like ice cream. The cones were made from paper, so were expendable; I used 160g light card A4 (cream coloured to look like an ice cream cone) - I only made six and they lasted well - at least 2 days. I could have re-used them next week but decided to make fresh cones.

Good luck!

 

PS I also added plastic lolly moulds on day two - and some children actually managed to mould the 'snow' into lollies. The stand that the lollies come in was used to stand the ice cream cones in.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Guest

[Deb]

Thanks DevonMaid, sounds really interesting! Going to have to give that a go. Think I'll start with the real ice cream cones and cereal. Can just picture chocolate sauce dripping over the cones!

[Cait]

This week, had about half an inch or so of water and some balsa wood squares. In a pot along side, the 'men' from the Chinese checkers game and some dice. Children threw how many dice they wanted, counted the spots and then put that many men on their raft and blew it across the tray. Proved very popular - and suprisingly competitive!