This is an activity I have had planned for a while as I've noticed from our previous experiences that Isabelle likes 'dry' messy play better than 'wet' messy play, so I thought it would go down well with her. I hadn't actually planned to do it today but when we arrived home and the dog needed an emergency trip to the vet with Simon, leaving me with Isabelle to sort dinner ASAP, I knew I would need something to keep her occupied to give me some time to get us both sorted out.This activity and our tuff spot were made to go together, so I pulled the tuff spot out into the kitchen and set up a bowl of plain flour along with a spoon and a scoop. She started to play immediately, scooping the flour from the bowl onto the tuff spot, and then into and out of the scoop. I got her a plastic bowl to use and she then divided the flour up into piles - one on the tuff spot, one in the bowl and one in the plastic bowl. The moving from place to place was her transportation schema in action again, and it was really interesting to see her create some of her own spaces for transportation. She used both her spoon and her scoop to transfer the flour and, at first, seemed a little hesitant to get the flour onto her hands.
That soon ended though, and before I had a chance to blink again she was scooping
the flour using just her bare hands. Isabelle loved crumbling the flour in her hands, and throwing it into little 'puffs' in the air. I showed her how to make more puffs by clapping her hands, and how to build a pile of flour on the tuff spot too. That kept her busy while I finished prepping dinner for us both (which was luckily our 10 minute teriyaki!), before I thought that it would be a good idea to get her out a sieve. The sieve was actually in use for dinner, so she got a colander instead! The idea was the same, however, and we piled some flour into the colander before we made it 'snow'.
Try as she might, Isabelle couldn't quite get the flour to fall through the colander - but not through lack of effort. She shook and shook, but just never seemed to get anything out, and more than once she almost tipped herself backwards with the effort!
Isabelle was tired after a long day with Grandad, and then a bit of a rush when we got home, so I don't think we got all we could out of our flour activity. However, I am really pleased with how eager Isabelle was to engage in this messy play activity, and will ave to figure out how we can incorporate more flour play into our future activities.
