Role play-garden centres

The children and I have been planning what we would like to grow in our little vegetable plot this year. The children have decided they would like to grow their own potatoes again and also some veg for the bunnies. (Anything to avoid eating vegetables themselves!)
We planted our seed potatoes and also carrot seeds and the children have decided that the bunnies would like some cabbages as well. This led to a discussion on where we can get cabbage seeds from and the general opinion was the garden centre would be the best place.

From this, we decided to role play being at the garden centre.

We started off by making chocolate scented playdough. This would keep the children occupied for a while as I set up the 'garden centre'. The playdough would also come in handy in our role play.

Playing with the dough actually took over a big chunk of our morning session as the children had so much fun with it! While we played we discussed what we would need for our 'garden centre' and I made a list.

We started off our play by 'setting up' ready for our customers.

The children used the playdough to fill a seed tray and planted their 'seeds' ready to grow. We used dried beans and lentils for seeds.

They quickly learned to poke a hole in the 'soil' and drop the 'seeds' in.

The girls 'wrote' the labels for their seeds and added them to the tray.

They watered the seeds to help them to grow. 

Next, they used more of the playdough to fill flower pots before added some artificial flowers to make a lovely floral display. 

 

We set out the flower pots, some tools, pots, watering cans and other items ready to sell.

On another table we set up the till ready for the sales assistant.

They then had fun taking it in turns to be the shop assistant and the customers. Props included a shopping basket and a shopping trolley, handbag and purse and a wallet.

 Little A was the first sales assistant and as she picked up the flower pot she passed it across the till as if scanning it. This was something she though of by herself and this was the way she served each customer. It's lovely to see three year olds copying what they see happening in every day life.

 C filled up his trolley with as much as he could fit in before going to the till to pay.

 A told him it was fourty-ninety pounds!

 She counted them money carefully... 

 ...before putting it in the till.

 C decided he was the delivery driver and took the flowers away to deliver.

A decided to fill her trolley as well!

 

This activity has really helped the children understand about paying for goods and receiving change.

We also talked about using our manners and saying "thank you and goodbye" to the sales assistant.

This activity was a huge hit with the children and one we will adapt and do again.

We're going on a Bear Hunt....

One of the children's favourite books is 'We're going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosin and Helen Oxenbury. This book is currently being read on a daily basis so we just had to incorporate it into our sensory play experiences!

We went to the supermarket to buy some cat litter trays-the children had no idea what they were for so this added to the excitement.

We later went to the park for a picnic and collected lots of twigs for our sensory play. Once again the children didn't know why we were collecting them so this added to the intrigue. As they added the twigs to our bag they began to guess what we were going to do with them. Ideas included sticking them on paper to make a picture, building a fire, making guns (the boys came up with this one!) and tapping them together to make music. Some good ideas and maybe something to use the twigs for when we have finished!

After we got home the children had a bit of free play time while I set up our 'Bear Hunt' in the garden.

I used hay (from the bunnies supply-thank you bunnies!) for the long wavy grass

Water (obviously!) for the deep cold river

Potting compost soaked in water for the thick oozy mud

 Twigs and sticks (that we collected earlier in the day from a local park) for the big dark forest

And the inners of 3 (clean) nappies soaked in lots of water (you'll be surprised how much this actually makes!)for the swirling whirling snowstorm

We took our book out to the garden and began our story time. 

As I read the story the children acted it out.

 Swishy swashy, swishy swashy.....

 Splash splosh, splash splosh.....

Squelch squerch, squelch squerch.....

 Stumble trip, stumble trip (the children didn't stand on this for health and safety reasons due to having bare feet!)

 Hoooo Woooo, Hoooo Woooo.....

We tiptoed towards a cave in the corner of the garden and saw...

....one shiny wet nose, two big furry ears, two big googly eyes......

IT'S A BEAR!!!

 We ran back to the house and jumped on the sofa.

We're not going on a bear hunt again!!

This is who we found in the cave.

His name is Billy Bear and he is our new playroom buddy.

Billy will be going on lots of travels and will be building up a photo album of the places he visits and will hopefully send us postcards to plot on our World map! 

The children are really looking forward to taking Billy with them when they go on their holidays this year.

Hands on-spaghetti

Today we decided to cook some spaghetti with a difference. We boiled up 2 saucepans of water, 1 with red food colouring in and 1 with green.
I added a few drops of oil as cooked spaghetti tends to stick together when it is drained.

The green food colouring didn't really take.....

...so we added some green paint!

And mixed it in.

Then we had fun with it!

The red food colouring took really well...

We had lots of fun with this!

Chopsticks come in handy

We added the green spaghetti to the red and mixed it in.

Although it took longer to clean up everything after this activity we had such a wonderful time!