Spring Play Dough: An Invitation to Play

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Play dough is a staple amongst ECE educators.  It's a great tool for imaginary play, exploration, and helps to build-up the fine motor skills needed for writing.  It's also cheap to make.  I often use this no cook recipe from The Imagination Tree. It's what I used in the picture below.  I added yellow food coloring and green glitter  to make it "springy."

 

The dollar store is a handy resource for cheap exploratory supplies.  If you are like me, and don't go often, Amazon is fantastic too (not to mention it'll be delivered right to your doorstep).  When I go to the dollar store, it takes me forever because I'm hunting for anything I can use for art and sensory activities.  It's amazing what you can find, especially amongst the seasonal items.  And the containers!  So many cute ways to present invitations to play/explore as well as for storing said objects.

For this particular invite, I set out the homemade play dough, sparkly Mini Styrofoam Eggs, silk flowers, and plastic butterflies.  The other play dough tools are all on a low shelf for easy access.

This particular spring themed invitation allows a child to explore concepts of spring: plants/gardening, new life, insects (life cycle), and Easter (if one chooses).  This activity allows for independent play and free exploration of materials.

You may be asking, "what is an invitation to play?" and that would be a great question.  For an awesome tutorial, check out Creating the Invitation to Play on Teach Preschool and Creating Invitations to Play! on The Imagination Tree.  

If you wish to expand this activity through reading, you might try:

 

Documentaries Your Children Will Love

Let me begin by telling you I am in no way being paid for this promotion.  Oh, and I haven't received anything for free either....except knowledge...O.K. that's cheesy, but it's true.  Now that I've gotten that out of the way....

I love documentaries but they have to be a specific genre.  Nature mostly, with some historical thrown in there if they cover Egypt, or secret societies, or mysterious treasure.  I want my kids to love them too but that's a little harder.  I can't seem to get them to sit with me long enough to enjoy a good documentary....until now.

Last year I saw a recommendation for one called Microcosmos.  It's about bugs.  If you have a child who LOVES bugs, this is perfect.  There's very little talking; only some at the beginning.  The rest is visual.  It's bugs in a meadow: ants, snails, caterpillars, beetles, water skis, etc.  and they are doing what bugs do.  The ants collect food and battle, a dung beetle attempts to move a big ball of poo up a hill, and the caterpillars eat leaves.  It sounds mundane, but it's visually stunning.  My son fought me tooth and nail when I suggested watching it, but loved it by the end.  I found it stunning.

    

The other documentary I came across is called MicroPlanet.  This one, narrated by a child, brings life in and around a pond up close in vivid detail and beauty.  It was educational, without being overly complicated.  Great for a good day of snuggling with your little one while learning.
   

The great part?  I found both of these documentaries on Netflix!  We have the subscription which allows us to watch shows and movies instantly so I didn't even have to wait for it to arrive in the mail.

Have you watched any kid friendly documentaries lately?  Please share in the comments below.