Thursday 23 October 2014

Breaking Stuff and Sword Fighting

The loose parts at the Shop of Possibilities are in a constant state of reuse, and often at some point their limits will be tested by the children, to the point where they are broken up. This time these two boys got stuck in to smashing up an old wooden structure left over from another project, but this led to some fun sword fighting where old saucepans became protective headgear!











Wednesday 8 October 2014

Staff as Props

It's enjoyable to watch the children using staff in their play. This time they really explored the power shift that this afforded them. What started off with one child, became a group activity where they kept pushing things to see how much the member of staff would let them get away with. However Elijah remained silent throughout the whole thing, even when the children tipped his chair over! Here's some photos of what happened from start to finish:



















Wednesday 1 October 2014

Play Pieces: September

Back to school but we're still playing!

We inherited an orca and a dolphin

Went camping (for about an hour!)

Lost some people

Made some unusual seats

Started a band

Made a cardboard city for our car

Covered our hands in chalk...

...and our face!

Started another band

Did some balancing

Made this unusual thing

Looked after injured teddy bears

Played a balancing gladiator game

Fitted ourselves in a tyre

Did some serious play with tools...

...and made a crossbow

Got a bit sleepy so made a bed

Did some giant drawings

Realised that a cardboard tube makes a good telephone

We wrapped a slide

Made some stairs

Held someone captive...

...then someone else

Finally we turned ourselves into superheros with some shiny big pants!