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Investigation/Playdough resources


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I've been having a bit of a rearrangement of drawers/trays and cupboards over the holiday and have come up with new spaces where I can put resources for a malleable area and an investigation/exploration area so they are really easily accessible for the children. I'm trying to refresh my basic provision in these areas too. I suppose I'm thinking about the 'tools' you might use in these areas such as magnifying glasses, rolling pins, cutters etc. Would any of you mind sharing what you have in these areas as your basics or must haves?

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In our playdough box we have bun tins, silicone cake cases, chocolate and biscuit box inserts (the plastic ones with the different shapes) the coloured craft lolly sticks (they love these and make them into candles) we also have some of them with numbers on for number recognition. We also have metal cup measures(these look like tiny saucepans) and of course the usual cutters, rolling pins, sticks, knives, scissors, potato masher...um I am sur there are loads more things but my brain has had a long rest over the holidays!! Our children love the spotters sheets that can be downloaded from a certain website (not sure if we are allowed to mention it still?) the children can tick certain creatures, animals, objects that they find..I have minibeast toys hidden in sand in the tuff spot for nest week and a minibeast spotter sheet on clipboards for them. Binocculars are popular in this area alongside the magnifyers.

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Thank you, that's a great start. I've been doing a big of exploring round The Imagination Tree website and found a few more ideas of things to stick in to playdough.

 

Basically I have 5 trays for each area, I'm thinking of leaving one for the actual playdough and leaving one for whatever the 'thing' we are investigating at that time is. At the moment both these don't really have a home and tend to get put next to our sink which has a habit of building up into something of a dumping ground.

 

Other things I have in my head at the moment: magnifying glasses, binoculars, bags/boxes for collecting things in, sorting rings/containers for sorting things, clipboards.

 

Isn't it fascinating how even having one person to share an idea with helps to get your own brain ticking?! Really appreciate the replies.

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We have some funky coloured tweezers the children like to use in the investigating area. coloured gems and matchsticks in the playdough, I have some sheets where I have drawn things like an octopus with no legs etc. and laminated so the children need to add the legs to the animals, tails, curls, etc. we also use bun tins and choccie box inserts, extruders,

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Brilliant Zigzag : "I have minibeast toys hidden in sand in the tuff spot for nest week and a minibeast spotter sheet on clipboards for them. Binocculars are popular in this area alongside the magnifyers"

 

We have laminated sheets for 'using marks as a means of recording' for bug hunts, shape hunts.....but always as an adult led activity no one has ever thought about just having them by the sand tray etc....so they can just 'record' what they find during freeplay...love it

 

We have an 'explorers' bag with binoculars, magnifying glasses/pots, walkie talkies, small globe, wind up torches, note pads, clip boards, bugs, small bird, bug, dinosaur ref books, laminated sets of pics depicting topical things from diff countries (they go off to explore australia for instance so we hide cards with native animals, boomarang, aborigini art etc, leads to lots of discussion about other cultures..parents also got really involved with this and sent lots of items in)

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