Guest Posted February 10, 2006 Posted February 10, 2006 Hi all, We have a small world area in our classroom dedicated to small world play. We have a range of resources for both boys and girls. However the girls would rather walk over burning coals than use the area. We have spent quite a lot of money on buying more girl orientated small world play however this seems to have had very little effect? Does anyone have any ideas we can try to entice them into the small world area? Lola
Guest Posted February 10, 2006 Posted February 10, 2006 Our small world area is pretty rubbish & I'm hoping for funds to improve it. It tends to be more male-oriented sets; we have a castle, a garage etc, Noah's ark, a dinosaur mat & dinos, a safari mat & animals, a farm, a tepee & 2 different sorts of dolls house. We also share across 3 FS classes: a 3 bears set & an igloo. I find we have a few girls who will use most of the sets - particularly the animals. How about if you visited somewhere or had a visitor in which might relate to the small world sets you have, e.g. a visit to a farm may encourage the use of that particular set or use a story link; we've got the 3 bears set, but you could just as easily choose a story to apply to a small world set that you use. Equally if gender roles are your problem you could invite a female '...' to talk to the children, e.g. firefighter, vet, mechanic. Out of interest, I'd like to know what other people use as small world which is particularly popular, so that after April when we receive more money (I have NO budget left until then ) I can spend it wisely.
Guest Posted February 10, 2006 Posted February 10, 2006 When we have small world play sometimes we push two tables together, cover them in white paper and let the children draw scenes for whatever we are doing. We have done roads and railways, a farm, an island. We make trees, buildings etc. The girls really enjoy this, and so do the boys, and because they have been involved in the making of it they do play with it afterwards. I'll put photographs in the gallery over the weekend so you can see the sort of things we have done. Linda
AnonyMouse_4544 Posted February 10, 2006 Posted February 10, 2006 Not sure where we going wrong or is that right but the boys cant get into our small world area for the girls! The same applies to the DT area where its mainly girls hammering and sawing
Guest Posted February 10, 2006 Posted February 10, 2006 (edited) Hi, our girls love the small world area, some of the things they love doing is playing with the dolls house (the boys love this too!), small wooden people and vehicles and next half term we're having a teddy bears picnic. We've turned it into a garden before, and filled the sunken table with mud, the girls love to plant seeds and replant flowers, and the boys love to hide and play with the dinosaurs Hope these ideas help. All else fails ask the girls what they would like to see on there! Edited February 10, 2006 by Guest
Guest Posted February 10, 2006 Posted February 10, 2006 ask the girls what they would like to see on there! 47577[/snapback] This sounds the best idea to me! What is your girl:boy ratio like? We are 2/3 boys and they can be a bit dominant over the girls - is this the same for you? Our children love small world play with dough too - people and cars or animals and greenery.
Guest Posted February 10, 2006 Posted February 10, 2006 Dear Chocolate girl In answer to your question to good small world play We really like playmobile and have found it stimulates lots of vocb related to topic work as the children put themselves in role as they play with the different people and their accessories. Only problem is that the children will insist on removing the hair on the people and they also like to take the vehicles and accessories to bits. This means you have to find time to put all the bits back. I think it's worth it but not everyone agrees.. We have recently invested in the tuff trays and all the different mats and small world theme pieces. The children seemed to have loved them at first but have gone off the boil in a few days of a new set being put out. The same can't be said for play mobile in my experience. Happy spending Trudie
Guest Posted February 10, 2006 Posted February 10, 2006 This sounds the best idea to me! What is your girl:boy ratio like? We are 2/3 boys and they can be a bit dominant over the girls - is this the same for you?Our children love small world play with dough too - people and cars or animals and greenery. 47581[/snapback] You could be right. We have 34 boys and 10 girls and when i think about it, when we offer the area as an activity it is a rush of boys who put their hands up which probabaly puts the girls off. I guess the girls may see it as 'boys territory'. Lola
Guest Posted February 11, 2006 Posted February 11, 2006 I'm not sure if i read the idea on here but one of my things on my "to do " list is to take photos of all the children- ( full body), print them off, cut out and laminate and these are used to attach to small lego/duplo bricks. So instead of duplo people, they enact scenario's with small models of themselves. . Like Chocolate girls comments, this would help make the area relevant to them. Peggy
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