Why is Heuristic Play Important? When I was a little girl, my grandmother sometimes used to care for me. She didn’t have a great deal of money and she certainly couldn’t afford expensive toys, but what she did have was a very resourceful nature and an innate understanding of what all children need to learn …
You don’t need special qualifications or skills, but I would advise completing a risk assessment for each activity. Here are some bushcraft ideas for kids
Babies and toddlers can get involved in a wide range of loose parts play learning. One of the beauties of loose parts play is that children can access it more or less from birth. Who is Loose Parts Play For? When looking at loose parts play ideas on the internet and social media, there is …
Transient art develops many skills: creativity, problem-solving, exploration.
Mirrors help young children develop an awareness of many things. They begin to understand reflection and symmetry. They also make children more aware of their own physical presence, and their movement. Mirrors can be used alongside loose parts to add visual intrigue to provocations. You can create portraits or pictures on mirrors. Mirrors can be …
Do you have a child that loves endlessly connecting Lego blocks and one giant tower? Or you might have a child that has a fascination with sticking objects to velcro, and will do this for a huge amount of time. It’s highly likely that these children are demonstrating a connecting schema. Put simply, a connection …
Do you have a child that spends hours putting things in pots? Or do you have one that loves climbing into any available box and hiding in there? More than likely these children are demonstrating a containment schema. Simply put, a containment schema is when a child is interested in putting objects into containers. They …
Have you got children that will happily run around chasing leaves in the wind for hours at a time? Or maybe you have a kid that can’t stop throwing pretty much anything that comes into their path? It’s highly likely that these kids are demonstrating a trajectory schema. This means that they are interested in …
Ever wondered why some young children seem to spend a huge amount of time and effort in placing objects in a line side by side? It’s called a positioning schema, and it’s a very common behavior that you will see often. A positioning schema is when a child is interested in experimenting with order and …
Rotation schemas are really common, and many children exhibit this repeating behavior pattern. I’ve taught in the early childhood phase for 12 years, and in that time I have trained myself to first look out for schemas, and second to act on them. Rotation schemas can be supported through so many different activities – whether …