(Goblin is 30 months)
After seeing a fab post on
Dirt and Boogers I decided to try some open ended play with pots of 'stuff'. Amanda at Dirt and Boogers was much more thoughtful in putting her pots together and made sure they were different colours, weights and textures. I managed the textures and weights but failed on the colours.
I used multicoloured pompoms of varying sizes, Some plastic beads (I picked out all the round ones), some ready soaked water beads, and some flat marbles.
I gave them to Goblin on a tray within a seed tray - to contain the water beads. I left the lids on the pots so Goblin had to practice opening them. I wanted to se how he'd play with the items inside.
He chose to insert them into a salad dressing bottle. He wasn't interested in the flat marbles at all, he didn't even open the pot. But he liked the other items and played for quite a while. Popping them in and out of the bottle and letting them roll round the seed tray.
This is a lovely child led activity that involves very little effort on the parents side - my favourite type of play! But that isn't the only reason I like this type of play, I read recently that open ended child led play is very important for children, it helps build confidence and self esteem because you can't get anything wrong. That is why I love open ended child led play.
I'm sharing this with
This is such a fun open ended activity - we've been playing open ended with pipe cleaners - we have a box, J gets them down and just sits and twist and turns and combines them he's getting confidence in what to do and having great fun doing it.
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Aren't pom poms wonderful! I agree--open ended play does amazing things for kids! I'm so glad you shared this at Teach Me Tuesday!!
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