I spy with my little eye…

We had great fun this week making this lovely I spy game…

  
We filled a litre coke bottle full of rice using a funnel… Lots of lovely talk about capacity and measure came from this. 

The children then hunted around the classroom to find items to pop into the bottle. It was fascinating to see how they were guessing whether their item was small enough to fit through the bottle neck, and then testing out the size. Cue lots of talk about size and weight! 

  
We then placed all the items on a sheet and photographed these so we knew what to look for. The children loved adding tiny items such as paper clips, split pins and even a rice crispy (“no one will ever spy these” they shrieked!) 

The items were then popped into the bottle and shaken profusely. Then the game began.

Great for…. 

Sounds 

Phonics 

Making relationships 

Resilience 

Speaking 

Listening 

Shape/space/measure 

Turn taking 

Have fun… I’d love to hear of any games you have made. Please add comments below x 

Spilling the beans on “Rainbow chick peas!”

Happy Sunny Sunday y’all! What better way to enjoy a Sunday morning than adding a little rainbow sprinkle to our lives! 

We are knee deep in reception baseline at the mo, it’s all going pretty swimmingly apart from observations on weighing and measuring. Last week we had playdough and scales, but the quality of observation wasn’t great. We went back to the planning drawing board, and decided to include a visual, sensory delight in the form of “rainbow chick peas”

In our sensory tray with the chick peas, the children will have jugs, containers, scoops, spoons, big pots, small pots and scales. I am hoping they will adore this provision and in turn we will see some lovely maths based learning come from their play.

They are super simple to whip up, and dry really quickly…. Here’s what you need…

  

• Chick peas (I used 3 bags,cheap as “chicks” from Sainsbugs!”
• Food colouring 
• Food bags
• Drying tray
• Grease proof paper

Empty out half the chick peas from on bag into a food bag, add 5 drops of food colouring and give a jolly good shake 

  
  

Empty coloured chick peas onto tray to dry. They dry really quickly (much quicker than pasta and you don’t need the alcohol hand sanitiser either!) 

  
Note to self… Go easy on the blue colouring and double bag when shaking….  

 

I now have hands covered in dye, I look like I’ve been trying to rob a bank!! 

  
The colours aren’t as vibrant as I would have liked, but I’m guessing that’s due to the type of food colouring I used! 

What I do know though is that I will have 30 super excited little explorers tomorrow!