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Hi all, i'm looking for some inspiration for new indoor toys and resources for 2 (approaching) 3 year olds...boy and girl
Indoors i have happyland, loads of books, some dressing up bits, toy kitchen food and till, loads of arts crafts stuff, duplo, push button toys, soft toys, but i feel they are not particularly engaging with it all. Any ideas?
Train track to build (and drive trains on).Quote:
Originally Posted by mumofone
Car tracks to build.
Dolls, buggies and baby paraphernalia!
Big puzzles to build together.
Pairs/lotto/dominoes games.
Big box of junk - boxes, tubes, sticks, bottle tops, empty bottles, stones, fircones etc etc to sort/ explore/ construct etc
All the above is what my older 2 yr olds and 3 yr olds enjoy.
Oh, and they all LOVE a couple of ghastly electronic things that tell you letters/numbers/sing songs etc! sadly, at the moment 'I have no idea where they are' ;0) !!!!
My 2/3 year olds love small world... I have small baskets of various small world and they freely access this. Plus I set up a small world invitation in a tray/ setting. Farm, Safari, dinosaurs, playground, cars, space, lots of different people and sylvanian families, garden, fairies, pirates, knights...I have various mats and trays for setting bases.
Also loose materials: shells, pine cones, stones, bits of wood, confers, acorns, slate....they love these with baskets and boxes.
Dolls, buggys, baby feeding is always a winner too.
Exploration toys: jugs, pipettes, containers with water, big magnets and magnetic things / bricks plus letters, look through bricks and cylinders, key and catch house and boards, explore baskets and simple electronic games.
Books and book resources are favs too, I make my own as story sacks are costly, they love corners and dens to read in.
This week small boxes have been all they have played with.....and I've played with a steam mop and accessories that came in them!
we use loose parts mainly , they seem to engage with things to explore much much more than standard 'toys'. They all love the magnet wands and various magnetic bits , christmas bells , jar lids and paperclips are favourites. They love our basket of bags and purses , they role play with them , make mobiles , collect treasures in them...
They like the opaque plastic picnic plates cups and bowls and make wonderful towers and creations. The ohp is always popular with a range of found opaque things ...or whiteboard markers , or photos printed on ohp paper.
Anything in the sensory tray attracts them , currently rainbow drops and plastic eggs to fill , pour etc.
planks pipes and various things they can make ramps with , and things that roll down. could be cars one day , balls another...but mine have potatoes and sprouts this week , experimented with hard boiled eggs but the kids certainly enjoyed that more that i did!! I got some wonderful gazing balls from b&m which everyone love.
I know youre not a pinterest fan , but maybe look at the online cosy catalogue , or even tts , they have lots of new ideas for what you already probably have around or could supplement rather than spending a lot on new resources.
Thanks mama2three, im on pinterest now but have to say im not sure i rave about it like most. It just seems a series of pictures to me which i can just get from googling anyway but perhaps i am missing the point. Ive created some boards but forget to look at them!Quote:
Originally Posted by mama2three
What are magnetic wands, they sound good!
How do you store or present your loose parts?
The only thing that captures their interest out of my toys i feel (apart from books and puzzles galore) is toy food and shopping baskets.
oh and they quite like a toy phone
Any ideas how i can extend these?
storage and presentation can be an issue ,for presentation most is in baskets , the shallow kind that display the contents , open shelves etc. - then into larger baskets to store as im a 'pack away' setting , *****mind in my lounge. Im not a fan of the usual 'labels' but these are often called provocations or invitations to play. If you think of it in those terms then you do tend to make things enticing and inviting , rather than just 'put out'.
If the like the food and shopping baskets then thats a great place to start. They love collecting and transporting - -Add a selection of real bags, purses and baskets , and go from there.
If you think its the 'shop' aspect they love then a role play area can also use all your 'real' things. How about rolls of wrapping paper with some cheap shop bought plants and real veg , primulas are about 50p just now, carrots and potatos always cheap ....a table with pens , receipts , blank stickers , clipboards , a phone , a till , baskets, bags.....
When I had two almost three year olds we had a lovely morning at the local fruit and veg store. We made a 'list' of things we wanted to buy (glued pictures of real fruit/veg onto a 'list shaped' piece of paper). The children folded up their lists (quite tricky to fold at that age, but they were really enjoying the challenge) and then off we went. I had two little plastic shopping baskets and the children had to find everything on their list and pop it into their own basket. They loved the independence and power. They then paid for them at the till and got their own little bag of food to carry home. Some of my favourite ever photographs are of that little field trip. A fruit and veg shop offers different experiences to the supermarket. I can't remember how we followed it up at home - maybe a fruit and veg shop role play area or cooking something with the ingredients, pictures of food and more paper so that they can make their own pictorial lists at leisure to use in their little shop. Model making your own lists with words and let them have access to pencils so that they might be tempted to add marks to their own lists.
How about a little field trip to a café and then make a role play café area at home. Make simple menus, again with photographs of food (supermarkets have free magazines or recipe cards which are great for this, or newspaper food supplements).
Telephones - observe what they are saying into their phones - are they using complete sentences/correct tenses etc - if not, that could be a next step and you could plan to model it in your own language. Model receiving phone calls and writing down messages - so provide a little message book. You could also make your own phone book with familiar peoples phone numbers. They probably can't form numbers yet, but it doesn't matter.
You're all amazing, can you come and work in my setting each day please!!!! :)