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Light play provides some excellent opportunities in your setting for children show some natural curiosity around science, engineering and wonder. Here are some resources you might like to audit your lighting play for…

• Light box
• Over head projector
• Torches (range of coloured lights)
• Shadow Puppets

Variety of loose parts to add to your light box;

• Shiny and reflective resources
• Coloured glass gems
• Twigs of varying lengths
• Mirrors
• Foliage
• Small world characters and buildings
• Plastic ice cubes
• Coloured counters
• Sweet wrappers/ cellophane
• Coloured cocktail stirrers
• Coloured plastic shot glasses
• Variety of buttons
• Paper doilies
• Numicon

Creative opportunities on the light box;

• Water beads
• Paint
• Black sand
• Eco glitter
• Clay
• Shaving foam

Don't miss out on the amazing opportunity to learn more about nature play here 

It's easy when there's a special day or time of year to dress all your provision around that particular theme. In my first year of teaching when it was bonfire night I would dress all my areas of provision around this particular theme for the week. Enhancing each area with things like;

-Firework themed play dough mats

-Adding red and yellow cellophane and kitchen roll tubes to the junk modelling table

-Putting black sugar paper up on the art easel and luminous paint colours.

Taking this approach to learning each week meant that there was always something in each area of the provision that the adult had decided the children should make often with the adults own example. Or maybe it would have been a tick sheet activity that everyone would have been called to take part in. Getting everything ready the week before was exhausting and I would often feel disheartened when I had set an activity up and the children used it in a different way.

This type of approach can leave very little...

Who loves potion making?

Today we have made some great mixtures but even better so much learning has happened- From predicting to problem solving!

We’ve explored making ‘Witches Blood’ and watched it fizz and bubble as the bicarbonate of soda combined with the vinegar.

The whole fam under one roof, Christmas bakes in the oven, winter roaring outside the front door: It doesn’t really get much cozier than Christmas.

Christmas…oh that’s right I mentioned the C word and it's only the start of November! I have Michael Buble de-frosting as we speak and in this weeks blog post I’m going to be sharing my first few ideas with you for supporting behaviour over the festive period. 

Over the last few months we’ve been getting ready for our Christmas training events at KSEY Consultancy and I know that so many of you are super organised (a bit like me!) and want to get things ready early. I always used to use my half term week in October to do the majority of my Christmas shopping and start writing my Christmas cards…a job I really do love doing.

As I said we’ve been planning Christmas for a little while now…we worked with our fabulous photographer back in August to get some great Christmas Product snaps, we’ve booked in our Complimentary Christmas Event for Me...

Christmas is such an exciting and wonderful time of year, but it can also become over whelming on the senses if we are not careful. Jane (Environmentasthe3rdteacher), an Early Educator in Australia, shares with us how she sets up a calm environment in her school while also ensuring the fun of the festive season.

You may think I’m a little strange but I have never really been one for traditional Christmas colours or the typical tinsel tree both in my home (much to my own children's dismay) and in my Pre Primary class. I prefer like in many of my set ups, natural products. When it comes to a Christmas tree often it involves a branch or driftwood with seed pods, twig stars and fairy lights. This year in my classroom I decided to set up a little Christmas area separated from the rest of my room by draping organza from the ceiling with twinkle lights woven through and
around.

I wanted to have a few different choices here including a sensory table which will change weekly i.e. fake snow etc...

After seeing an article on using natural dye to colour the play dough we decided to give it a go with Dandelions. The field near us was about to be cut and so we rushed to collect as many daffodils as we could to use in our recipe before they were destroyed. 

We love Dandelions and so do the bees! So it's really important that we don't take these away from the wildlife they support. As they come back year after year and have one of the longest flowering seasons of most plants many gardeners actually dislike their success and try and get rid of them! 

To make our natural play dough we followed this recipe we found online;

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup of boiling water
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 tablespoon cream of tarter
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 10-15 dandelion flowers with petals pulled out

Method

• Take your dandelion heads and put them into a cup of boiling water. Stir with a fork.
• In a mixing bowl add your other ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon.
• Once your water and
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1. Consider your culture 

• We want to make learning so irresistible that they can’t  wait to start exploring 
• these key skills. The way we set up our learning environment plays an important 
• part in this. It helps to shape the culture we are trying to promote for our children. 
• Take a look at your provision and consider the following questions; 
• Have your Literacy displays turned into wallpaper that goes unnoticed? 
• Do children often struggle to find their favourite book because you have so many 
• out? 
• Have you offered cosy spaces to sit and share books? 
• Are children having to hunt to find a pencil to write their name on their painting? 
• Do you as an adult label children’s work? 
• Are your books often shoved back into the book case and look tatty?

Consider your role when it comes to promoting Literacy skills. 

• Are your guided and focus Literacy sessions only organised inside? Perhaps giving 
• off the message that Literacy only happens inside. 
• Are childre
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