Following a child’s lead…As you can see I had set up a lovely little sensory bin this morning for the little man. He is very into animal sounds at the moment and constantly points out animals in books and picks up toys to make sounds. He is also on constant repeat singing his version on old macdonald. So I made this modest little sensory bin with his farm.
Needless to say the farm went out the window very quickly, as he went and got some bowls out of the cupboard to fill and empty rather than play with the animals. So I followed his lead and did some filling and emptying. I then added a funnel and a jug to practice pouring, which he absolutely loved!
Second child lead learning of the day was the Hoover. Needless to say having a lentils sensory bin down stairs in your open plan house was asking for a large amount of cleaning up. Whilst he was deeply involved in the sensory bin I decided to have a quick Hoover up of the rug that was now full of lentils. He stopped and watched and suddenly made the revelation of what a hoover does! He watched me Hoover the mass amount of lentils, ran back to the sensory bin, grabbed a hand full of lentils and threw them on the floor in front of me as I hoovered and continued to watch in awe as I hoovered them up. He did this a few more times before he wanted to test this theory that the hoover will make anything in its path disappear. He tried balls and cars, obviously neither of which worked. So he went back to lentils. Thankfully he decided since it only hoovered up lentils it wasn’t that fun and went back to his sensory bin.
Sensory bins are a wonderful experience for children and there are probably thousands of ideas out there for them. You can shape them to a child’s interests and Schemas and also to current themes or planning in your settings. I had planned on writing a post about sensory bins today and sharing lots of ideas, I will do that another day, as today I wanted to show you that the magic of learning happens when you let children guide their own learning and your planning and play. You can extend their play through parallel play, sustained shared thinking or my adding a few more resources that fit the play they are immersing themselves in but please please please never stop a child and show them how you want them to play or what the activity ‘should be’! Be truly child centred and child led even in your adult led and planned provision, this is how the most learning will get done. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
Love Early Education,
Love, Kylie x
Love Early Education 