Materials is a wonderful theme that supports the exploration and investigation aspect of knowledge and understanding of the world, based on first-hand experiences that encourage enquiry and observation. The project gives practitioners opportunities to plan many experiences that will help children to explore the properties of materials, notice similarities and differences, and see how materials can change.
Approach
The Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (page 11) emphasises the importance of providing children with a balance of adult-led and child-initiated learning opportunities. This project:
* Identifies adult-led activities, to introduce or develop children's understanding of the topic through stimulating, meaningful experiences which offer challenge
* Suggests ways to enhance areas of core provision, to consolidate children's learning about the theme. It is the practitioners' role to make daily observations of children's learning which inform individual child profiles and future planning. Children should be encouraged to use the resources to support their own learning. This means that the possible learning outcomes will be wide-ranging and varied
* Advocates that settings should be organised and resourced using a 'workshop' approach so children can access resources autonomously and independently.
It is important to recognise that:
* Children need lots of first-hand experiences, time and space to develop knowledge and understanding, skills and attitudes through play
* The practitioner has a key role in supporting and extending children's learning
* It is essential to provide an exciting learning environment indoors and outdoors that stimulates children's interest and curiosity
* Creativity is fundamental to successful learning and children's own ideas should be valued
* The process of learning is central and should not be undermined by an inappropriate emphasis on products or predetermined outcomes.
Recent EPPE research has found that in the 'excellent' settings, the balance of who initiated the activities (staff members or child) was nearly equal, revealing that the pedagogy of the excellent settings encourages children to initiate activities as often as the staff. Also, staff regularly extended child-initiated activities, but did not dominate them...
freely chosen play activities often provided the best opportunities for adults to extend children's thinking. Adults need, therefore, to create opportunities to extend child-initiated play as well as practitioner-initiated group work, as both have been found to be important vehicles for promoting learning'.(EPPE Technical Paper 10: Case Studies of Practice across the Foundation Stage. DfES/Institute of Education, 2003)
Enhanced provision
Throughout the duration of the theme, enhance the tactile and malleable provision by creating a small area where children can explore a wide range of diverse materials on a daily basis. Present the materials in small, shallow trays on a table. Provide a selection of resources to support exploration, such as sieves, tea strainers, tweezers, small spoons, tiny plastic bottles, unbreakable mirrors, small tins and packets.
Consider the following: salt and glitter; dry sand, sequins and 'jewels'; damp sand and wet sand; wet clay; cornflour and water mix; hypo-allergenic shaving foam; moonglow or metallic gravel; soap flakes and water mix; dry or cooked pasta; wholegrain flour and water paste; shredded newspaper and water.
Adult-led activities
Three little pigs
Key learning intentions
To show an understanding of the sequence of events in stories
To extend vocabulary, exploring the sounds and meanings of new words To describe simple features of objects
Adult:child ratio 1:up to 10
Resources
* Three Little Pigs by Nick Sharratt * Feely box containing a house brick, bundle of straw and small wooden plank * Magnetic props of the main characters and a magnetic board
Preparation
Gather together the resources and put them into the feely box.
Activity content
* At a group story time, show the children the feely box and ask one child to feel inside the box and describe what they can feel.
* Model the use of questioning. Ask the child to take the item out of the box and show the other children. Discuss what the object is.
* Encourage the children to guess what else could be in the feely box, and choose another child to select an item in the box to feel and describe.
Continue in the same way and ask the children to consider the link between the items.
* Look at the props and introduce and reinforce the use of vocabulary, emphasising descriptive words.
* Read the story to the children, spending time looking closely at the illustrations of the different houses.
* Retell the story again, with the children joining in the key text.
* Discuss the children's own homes, what they are made of and what they would like them to be made of. Have them consider the advantages of homes made of straw, wood, leaves, mud, metal or other materials.
Extending learning
Key vocabulary
Brick, straw, wood, tiles, foundations, cement, build, buildings, home, house, demolish, rebuild, scaffolding
Questions to ask
* What do you think could be in the box? What does it feel like? Is it soft or hard? Can you squeeze it?
* Why do you think these things are in the box? Can you remember any stories with these things in?
* Which was the best house? Why? What do you think your home is made from? What could you make a house from? Do you think a paper house would be a good idea? Why not?
Extension activities
* Plan opportunities for children to retell the story independently, using pig and wolf masks, large building blocks, straw bundles and twigs/branches.
* Support the children as they make the pigs' houses, using shoe boxes, twigs, straw and prints from construction bricks, and engage in imaginative small world-play using wolf and pig puppets.
* Provide a magnetic wedge/board for children to retell the story using magnetic card story props.
Child-initiated learning
Interactive display - building materials
Additional resources and adult support
* Set up an interactive display with posters or photographs of local buildings, books about builders and buildings, assorted bricks, tiles, building tools, trays of gravel, sand, pebbles and compost.
* Encourage the children to explore the materials and record their comments in speech bubbles.
Play possibilities
* Making connections with previous experiences and the buildings they know
* Piling up the bricks
* Comparing the sizes and weights of the bricks
* Exploring the properties of the materials, feeling the weight or texture
* Making rubbings of the bricks
Possible learning outcomes
Shows curiosity
Has a strong exploratory impulse
Interacts with others, taking turns in conversation
Builds up vocabulary to reflect breadth of experiences
Uses mathematical language in practical activities and discussion
Investigates materials to find out more about them
Role play building site
Additional resources and adult support
* Provide dressing-up clothes to support building site role play, including' overalls, safety helmets, goggles and boots.
* Provide props including builders' buckets, trays, watering can, sand, gravel, potting compost, sieves, Tuff Spots, wooden blocks, wooden planks, large plastic bricks, empty cardboard boxes, lengths of fabric, shovels and trowels, plastic pipes/guttering, wheelbarrow, paint buckets and decorators' brushes, clip boards, safety signs, plans and building catalogues.
* Observe, and where appropriate, extend children's imaginative role play.
* Model the use of specific resources and act 'in role' as an architect, building inspector, bricklayer, plumber or painter.
* Ask open-ended questions which encourage the use of imaginative and descriptive language.
* Create situations that encourage talk in an imaginative context.
* Encourage children to add additional resources or use equipment in creative ways to support their play.
Play possibilities
* Exploring resources and textures
* Creating play scenarios and acting in role
* Climbing inside boxes or using fabric to create 'hidey holes'
* Designing and making buildings and towers using blocks, boxes, planks and fabric
* Putting on clothing independently
* Expressing and communicating ideas, thoughts and feelings through role play
* Exploring moving on a large scale, digging and building
Possible learning outcomes
Works as part of a group, co-operating and negotiating
Dresses and undresses independently
Uses language to recreate roles and experiences
Interacts with others, negotiating plans and activities
Uses the mathematical language of measures
Explores objects and materials
Uses imagination in role play
Mixing table outdoors
Additional resources and adult support:
* Provide assorted bowls, large spoons, baking trays and saucepans, bowls of sawdust, sand, potting compost, dried pulses, split peas, gravel, flour, wood shavings; jugs of coloured/soapy water.
* Encourage the children to select materials to mix in their own bowls.
* Model the use of key vocabulary using descriptive and comparative language.
* Ask open-ended questions about how things work and why they happen.
* Support children's conversations, encouraging them to communicate what they are doing and why.
* Promote autonomy through the independent use of materials and tools.
Play possibilities
* Exploring and investigating the ways in which materials can be mixed together and change when water is added
* Role-play cooking and baking
* Making magic potions and spells to support fantasy play
* Filling and emptying bowls
* Pouring and stirring
Possible learning outcomes
Works as part of a group
Interacts with others, taking turns in conversation
Enjoys rhythmic activities
Shows an awareness of change
Handles tools with increasing control
Begins to describe textures of things
Small-world play swamp
Additional resources and adult support
* Provide a small-world imaginative play scenario in a Tuff Spot, with small pieces of camouflage netting, potting compost, dry sand, boulders, pebbles, bark chippings, bark, gravel, shells, cones, plants, branches and logs.
* Raise one side of the Tuff Spot with a wooden block, so that one side can be filled with water. Add plastic dinosaurs.
* Provide information texts about dinosaurs on a nearby table.
* Ask questions such as, where do the dinosaurs live? What do they eat? Which ones prefer the water?
Play possibilities
* Mixing the compost, sand and gravel with water
* Exploring the materials
* Retelling stories that involve dinosaurs and fantasy themes
* Gathering information from texts
* Retelling dinosaur rhymes and chants
* Feeding the dinosaurs and creating homes for them
* Making connections with visits to dinosaur exhibitions
Possible learning outcomes
Has a growing awareness of the needs of others
Retells stories with props
Uses language to imagine and recreate roles
Makes connections between the small-world provision and events in their own lives
Finds out and identifies some features of natural objects
Expresses creativity through imaginative play
Sand mousse
Additional resources and adult support
* Provide dry sand in a Tuff Spot, with squeezy bottles filled with small amounts of diluted bubble solution.
* Leave a tray of clay tools, cooking utensils and small bowls under the table.
* Encourage the children to mix the bubble mixture and the sand.
* Ask children what they are doing and what they think will happen.
* Let children explore the mixture and make marks with their hands and fingers.
* As play develops, let the children add tools of their choice from the tray.
Play possibilities
* Making hypotheses and asking questions
* Making patterns and marks in the mousse with fingers and hands
* Pretending to be monsters with strange hands
* Making marks and patterns with tools
Possible learning outcomes
Shows increasing independence in selecting and carrying out activities
Uses a widening range of words to express or elaborate ideas
Draws lines and circles
Talks about and makes simple patterns
Shows and awareness of change
Uses one-handed tools and equipment
Resources to support the theme
* Buff earthenware and stoneware clay - 10kg, 3.05
* Recognising materials, and changing materials - pack of twelve A4 photographs, 11.95
All from NES Arnold (tel: 0845 120 4525 www. nesarnold.co.uk )
* Mixed moonglow gravel - 3 kg. Small, smooth gravel in a range of metallic colours 4.50. Bark chippings - 11 litres 8.99. Dried pulses, yellow split peas - 3 kg 3.42. Hypo allergenic shaving foam 2.75. Cornflour - 3.5 kg 5.99. Tuff Spot 11.75.
All from TTS (tel: 01623 447686 www.tts-group.co.uk)