Placement - Creating Environments Part 2

Hey all,

So during my second week of placement, I had to make an environmental change with the outdoor environment. The centre had a beautiful blue water trough but following a child getting comfortable inside the trough, a large crack appeared. This meant that for the last 12 weeks, it had only been filled with a small layer of sand and some sifts.

I saw this area as an opportunity to make a positive and supportive change and got to work o  how a could switch it up. During one of my tea breaks, I came across a book in the staff room a out creating play environments and after a quick flick through, I found a recipe for making coloured rice.

Coloured Rice

White rice (amount depending on the activity/environment you are planning)

Food coloring

Water

Large flat tray

Lay the rice flat on your tray. Mix the water, just enough to wet the rice, and your food colouring. The darker the colour you want the rice to be, the more food colouring you should be adding. Mix the rice and the water, moving it around so that all the grains are coated. Lay in a warm dry area to dry. If using separate colours, they can be mixed at this point in the process Once completely dry, the rice can be stored indefinitely.  

I chose the blue so that I could create and under the sea theme following an underwater puppet show that the children experienced. After the rice was dried and mixed, I brought it to the centre and placed it into the trough. I added some small blue cups for pouring, some shells to further the experience and some bath toys.

The end result looked spectacular and the children could not be pulled away!

The rice provided a new use for the trough and really lit up this area of the garden. To actually look at the rice and see it run through their fingers was a different experience for the children and the smell of the Basmati rice added to this.

I would definitely replicate this in the future and already have some ideas on how to do so. However, while the children enjoyed it, the cleaning up is not as easy as sand. Older children would understand that the rice needs to stay in the trough, a concept that was lost on the 0-2 age group. But this did not stop them from enjoying themselves.

The educators really loved this and since the weather in Melbourne is so often hot and dry, preparing this material is terribly easy for the staff. I would definitely recommend trying this in your educational environment!

Miss Tracy xx

Placement - Creating Environments Part 1

Me again!

As you have already seen some of my planned experiences, I thought I would show you the environment changes. The requirements were to change or create a new environment during my second week, one indoors and one outdoors. This post focuses on my indoor environment.

The children in the room spend a lot of time playing in the home corner and I noticed that C was starting to engage in more and more imaginary play so I thought about replicating a familiar environment that the children would love. After some online idea searching, I laid eyes on this, featured on the Estefi Machado blog, and could not get it out of my head. After more looking, I decided that this idea was the one and started to work on building my own...

The hardest part was finding a box large enough. I have a good friend who works at the Good Guys who was kind enough to direct me to their packaging warehouse, where I got my  hands on an actual washoing machine box. The box is designed to just cover the washer so there was no bottom. I made the box shorter and used the left over cardboard to form a floor. I then taped everything up so it resembled a cube.

The next step was cutting out the hole, and  moving very slowly, I managed to use a Stanley knife to cut the round shape. Leaving one quarter of the circle uncut, I was able to create a fold, which means that the door can be open and shut and objects placed inside. Then a circle with a smaller circumference was cut to create the window. I recently bought some new bed sheets and used the plastic pouches they came in to create the glass of the window. You can use plastic sheeting or a clear table cloth to create the same effect.

The last step was adding the details and using the picture from Estefi Machado and a new Sharpie, I copied the marking onto the cardboard. I was so impressed with the final product and looked forward to adding it to the centre environment.

A cardboard box in the shape of a washing didn't seem enough for the children so I purchased some coloured dolly pegs from the $2 shop, found and recycled an iron board stand and borrowed some dolly clothes, a peg bucket and a small basket from the centre. And then I created a laundry room!

The children were so excited to play with the box, hiding in it, emptying the pegs and clothes and putting them back, opening and shutting the door; they could not get enough of it! The staff were also impressed with the change and were taken aback by the washing machine. As of when I left, the box was still intact but the staff had taken the top flaps off so they could see inside but other than that, the laundry room was in still in action.

If I was to replicate this, there are some changes to consider:

• creating a bigger door
• using a larger clothesline with better 'lines'
• adding scoops, wash powder boxes, Napisan cylinders etc.
• changing the style to a top loader to prevent crawling in

Overall, I am so happy with how everything turned out and cannot wait to create more environment which initiate and sustain play based learning!

Miss Tracy xx