Planning Activities

[Guest]

I know we are supposed to plan activites around the childrens interests, but two of our reception boys only want to play fight. When we do get them to stop they constantly try to play games involving guns and swords,armies and war. We have disscussed the issue with the parents, but they just said boys will be boys.

We are not allowed to encourage violence and are struggling to come up with activities for them. The only one we could think of was paper aeroplanes but they just threw them at each other and made paper bombs. Can any one help us to come up with an activity they cann't turn into a fight?

[AnonyMouse_19782]

Is their interest in this coming from a particular area? Are they participating in a lot of computer play at home with these things as graphics?

 

A few weeks ago some on here said they were running a Super Hero Skill School - they were, therefore, in control of what was happening or going to happen, they taught the super heroes to play fight (I know this is not what you want ultimately), but to fight without making contact with each other, they had an obstacle course I think, anyway could you think of some skills your boys would need within the area they are interested in to expand on just the fighting element? How about map making - where their armies are positioned? Commando training - obstacle course, crawling under a net etc. could they actually make play swords and shields and design their own coat of arms? Just thinking out loud really.

 

Good luck, boys can be tricky!

[AnonyMouse_31752]

Hi don't know if this helps but we found in the end it was difficult to stop this kind of play so we tried super hero play as well and it was very effective. Also if you have a chance the book 'we don't play with guns here' is worth a read it makes you look at the play in a different light which may be helpful! good luck xxx

[Guest]

Thank you for the ideas. I will start commando training next week. Hopefully it will work.