Best resource you own/children use?

[sarah sunflower]

Hey you lovely people! Hope everyone is enjoying the hols!

As title says what do you find is the best resource you bought/own?
What are the favourite items that the children in your care play with?

I'm wanting to invest in some new resources but want to see what everyone recommends, I'm thinking of getting a dark den, anyone have one? What do you think of them?

I would really like to have more natural kinds of resources and things that can be used imaginatly (if that makes sense!)

Look forward to all your brilliant suggestions!!

Thanks

Sarah

[eddie]

Best and most used item is treasure baskets.

Dark dens are great if you have the room (which I don't unfortunately).

I have downsized lots of my resources replacing them gradually with more 'natural' open ended things.

[twiggy]

My best resource at the moment is a pink cotton sheet. The children use it for dens, it has been a hairdressing cape and a boat which they pull each other around in. I have tried to put it away but they always ask for me to get it back out. Even the older children enjoy playing with it.

[Mrsh3103]

Sensory bottles! Especially the one with just water & blue glitter!!!

[sprinkles]

Sensory bottles! Especially the one with just water & blue glitter!!!

Did you make them yourself? I have a 7 month old starting soon so looking for ideas for activities for him.

[Mrsh3103]

Yeh. It's just an old lucozade bottle with water & glitter then the lid glues back on.
There was a thread on here the other day with some fantastic ideas of what to put in them :)

[AliceK]

Empty cardboard boxes. SERIOUSLY. All the children from 2yrs up to 9yrs love them. Any size. I've got very large ones the size you can sit in and quite small ones. Now when I get a delivery I just leave the empty box in the play room and the children soon use it for something. If only I'd worked this out years ago I could have saved myself a fortune.

xxxx

[kats]

Best and most used item is treasure baskets.

Dark dens are great if you have the room (which I don't unfortunately).

I have downsized lots of my resources replacing them gradually with more 'natural' open ended things.

I'm doing exactly the same im gradually getting rid of my things to make room for more natural things :)

[FizzWizz]

I agree that it is the more natural things that get used the most and i seriously need to downsize my vast quantities of rarely used certain plastic toys!

i think the favourite resources for my little ones are the boxes of porridge, rice, salt, cloud dough and coloured pasta with some tools or creatures added for extra effect! (And also the tuff tray to help spreading said resources across my entire kitchen!)

[kimnolan87]

Agree with the empty box activity! My older children also love picking up free magazines or catalogues and spending hours cutting and sticking to make collages!!! Xxx

[maisiemog]

Here it's pen and paper! They love colouring. Closely followed by blankets. They either turn the dining table into a den with them or lay them out in my hallway and each blanket is a different room in their house!

Always the cheapest things that they use the most! If I had learnt this when I first started I could have saved myself a small fortune!

[Bumble Beez]

Agree with the empty box activity! My older children also love picking up free magazines or catalogues and spending hours cutting and sticking to make collages!!! Xxx

Yes so do my lot...sometimes their creations are just wonderful!

Sarah x

[eddie]

I agree that it is the more natural things that get used the most and i seriously need to downsize my vast quantities of rarely used certain plastic toys!

i think the favourite resources for my little ones are the boxes of porridge, rice, salt, cloud dough and coloured pasta with some tools or creatures added for extra effect! (And also the tuff tray to help spreading said resources across my entire kitchen!)

Tuff trays are brilliant aren't they! I am replacing all my plastic play food with wooden ones and less of them as well.

[sarah sunflower]

Lots of fab ideas! Thanks.

Boxes and pots are popular here they all love to paint/decorate them!

I've found happy land to be very popular too, and I could live without my tuff spot now. We created a wildlife area with leaves, grass, sand etc in yesterday. They sat for ages yesterday making story lines up!

Think ill make some discovery bottles and some more treasure baskets over the weekend.
What's everyone's most favourite treasure basket?

S

[starschildmind]

Im not sure if this will work... but here is the fab thread about the discovery bottles. They are to look feel and smell :) i have added loads more to my collection because of this thread. Mine come out every day :)

http://www.childmindinghelp.co.uk/forum/activity-ideas/121647-discovery-bottles.html

Xxx