EYFS 'learning through play' toddler activities
Those of you who follow me on social media, will no doubt have noticed that I LOVE to come up with interesting 'learning through play' activities for Arthur to try at home. Play is the best way for children ( and arguably adults too) to learn! If it is fun, we are more likely to remember it aren't we?? Over the coming weeks I am going expand on some of my social media posts in more detail, should you wish to give some of these a go yourself...
Edible Fine Motor Skills Activity:
You will need:
- A banana
- Cereal hoops ( we used cheerios)
- Raw spaghetti
Set up:
The photo here (below) is fairly self explanatory - stick the raw spaghetti into the banana to create 'posts' to thread the cereals onto. Try not to put them too close together otherwise it can be a little more tricky! Vary the height of the different pieces of spaghetti. Thread a few cheerios onto some of the sticks of spaghetti as a reminder of what the activity is, and leave a handful of the rest on the plate for your child to have a go themselves.
Activity:
Show your little one how to do this a few times before letting them have a try. Make sure you talk about and explain what you are doing ( in simple terms) as you show them. For example, I repeated "put the hoop on the spaghetti", to Arthur as I did just that. This helps to build understanding of language.
Extend:
Depending on the age and stage of your child, you can extend this activity in a number of ways:
- Use different colour hoops ( coco hoops, honey hoops, cheerios etc) to encourage colour sorting onto different sticks of spaghetti, pattern making etc
- Counting - count the hoops as you / your child puts them on or takes them off. Count how many are on a particular stick etc, how many of a particular colour.
- Addition/Subtraction - find a total number of hoops on the banana. Remove a stick of hoops and talk about how many 'less'
NB: The ends of the spaghetti can be sharp - watch out for eyes and of course, if your child wants to eat the banana after, you will probably have to remove pieces of broken spaghetti from inside the banana first.
EYFS links: For those looking to link this activity to the EYFS, here are the main strands to look out for and link to depending on how you used the activity:
Communication & Language ( L&A, U, S), Physical Development (M&H), Maths ( N, SSM), CofL.
Emptying and Filling activity:
You will need:
- A selection of dried beans/peas
- A selection of containers for emptying/pouring into
- Scoops or spoons
- Helping Hands tools (amazon link below)
Activity:
As with most activities, the most important thing is to model (demonstrate) using the resources to your child. I actually started this activity with just the scoops and containers, showing Arthur how to scoop up the beans and then transfer from one container to another, using appropriate language whilst doing so such as "scoop", "empty" etc.
After he had a good few goes with this, I slowly introduced the helping hands tools (link above), again, demonstrating how to use them and offering support as needed. Dont worry if they find this tricky - just let them explore.
Extend:
For older children encourage one to one correspondence with counting by touching and counting the beans and also counting them as you take them in and out of the containers. Ask for 'one more' or 'one less' and find out the new total.
EYFS links: For those looking to link this activity to the EYFS, here are the main strands to look out for and link to depending on how you used the activity:
Communication & Language ( L&A, U, S), Physical Development (M&H), Maths ( N, SSM), Understanding the world (TW), Expressive Arts and Design (UMM), CofL.
Fish Investigation Activity:
You will need:
- A whole fish ( from the seafood counter)
- Any other seafood as appropriate - I have undertaken this activity in school in the past with a selection, including fish, oyster, langoustine, mackerel, sprats
- Magnifying glass (optional)
- Crushed ice for the fish to lay on (optional)
Activity:
For older children, you could cover the fish up with a newspaper and let them have a guess first as to what could be underneath.
Give clues such as: it is wet, cold, belongs in the sea, begins with /f/
Focus on the use of senses - what can you smell, look, feel (not taste for this one!)
Reveal the fish and allow your child to investigate. This activity gives you some really good opportunities to develop language by offering vocabulary as they explore for example:
Verbs: ( add verbs in when speaking to children to give them additional language)
Hold, touch, stroke, poke, prod, lay, put, look, see, feel, touch, smell,
Vocab: (Use vocab in comments to children to give them the language)
Sea, water, cold, ice, fish, mussel, langoustine, sprat, mackerel, trout, slippy, slimy, sharp, heavy, light, long, short, longer, shorter, fin, scales, tongue, teeth, eye, tail, bones, gills
Extend:
For younger children, extend their thinking and their understanding of vocabulary by adding the vocab mentioned above into the following phrases:
I can see that you are…
That….is very…..
You have …..it is very……
That… is bigger/smaller than……
I like how you are……
This feels…..
I think that……
Your (creature) has …..
For older or more able children, extend their thinking with the following questions:
How did you...
Can you...Estimate...
One more...
One less...
How many...
Compare...
What can you see/feel/smell...
total...
EYFS links: For those looking to link this activity to the EYFS, here are the main strands to look out for and link to depending on how you used the activity:
Communication & Language ( L&A, U, S), Physical Development (M&H), Maths ( N, SSM), Understanding the World (TW), CofL.
Sensory Water Play Activity:
You will need:
- Water tray
- fresh water
- Lemons/limes - sliced
- mint leaves
- containers for filling and emptying
- Pipette ( from the helping hands set)
- rose petals (optional)
Activity:
This was a very open ended 'set up and go' activity. I modelled to Arthur how to empty and fill the containers and how to touch, feel and smell the leaves and lemons by just getting in there and playing myself (alongside him). Getting involved and playing with your children is one of the best ways for them to learn - don't ever feel embarrassed, or worry that others will look at you and think you are 'just playing' - they may not understand the value of play, so show them!
As with the activity above, this is a great one for building language, with vocab such as:
Lemon, lime, mint, leaf/leaves, rose, petal, flower, water, splash, pour, fill, empty, drops, squeeze, pipette, wet, dry, cold, warm, sour, touch, feel, smell, fruity, minty etc etc
Extend:
For younger children, extend their thinking and their understanding of vocabulary by adding the vocab mentioned above into the following phrases:
I can see that you are…
That….is very…..
You have …..it is very……
That… is bigger/smaller than……
I like how you are……
This feels…..
I think that……
Your (petal) has …..
For older or more able children, extend their thinking with the following questions:
How did you...
Can you...Estimate...
One more...
One less...
How many...
Compare...
What can you see/feel/smell...
total...
EYFS links: For those looking to link this activity to the EYFS, here are the main strands to look out for and link to depending on how you used the activity:
Communication & Language ( L&A, U, S), Physical Development (M&H), Maths ( N, SSM), Understanding the World (TW), CofL.
Edible Building Activity:
You will need:
- Hoola Hoops
- Cheddars
- Squirty cream
- equipment for spreading, such as a toddler knife etc
Activity:
I decided to keep this one entirely edible as I knew the crisps would be far too tempting!!
An alternative option to this activity is to use building blocks and shaving foam, if your child is old enough to understand that they should not eat the shaving foam!
Again, this is a great activity for exploring different senses ( including the sense of taste this time!) I demonstrated sticking the hoola hoops together and building a tower, before allowing Arthur to just take control and do what he wanted with this one....obviously that was going to be 'eating!'
The cream is great for early mark making and Arthur really enjoyed spreading it around with his hands and making marks with his fingers.
Lots of vocab available to introduce in a meaningful context:
Spread/spreading, soft, cold, build, stick, tall/taller, long/longer, one more, one less, taste, feel, crunch, lick, etc.
You can use the same type of questions as in the activities above to extend their level of thinking (if you aren't losing your mind by this point and trying to remove squirty cream from walls and floors!
Have fun!! I will be posting more of our activities in more detail over the next few weeks - if you enjoyed reading this please share the post with others so that they can have a go at the activities too!
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