On Tuesday, I posted about the lovely Christmas decorations that Home Bargains sent us. While I was putting some of them up, Isabelle became fascinated with the string of beads and so I decided to use the remaining decorations to create a Christmas decoration tuff spot exploration activity for her (what a ridiculously 'grand' title for some decorations thrown down!)We haven't done an activity like this before. This was all about simply touching, feeling, looking and getting to grips with the decorations. There was no over arching purpose, no end product, just exploration and a chance to look at materials which we may not normally encounter. I wasn't sure if it would hold her attention for very long, but she soon proved me wrong.
Onto the tuff spot I put:
- fake snow
- electric tealights
- glittery stars
- glittery bows
- glittery apples
- a glittery butterfly
- a feathered bird
- silver beads
- angels
Isabelle dived straight in by picking up each of the decorations in turn and having a look and a feel of them. She loved that they had strings attached which meant she could flail them about very effectively! We talked about the colours and used the words glittery and shiny a lot, as everything was very glittery and shiny! As the decorations were covered in glitter they felt a little bit rough, and Isabelle rubbed them between her fingers a few times before rubbing them off one another to make a noise.
The beads got a lot of concentration as she rubbed the little balls between her fingers, ran the strings along the tuff spot and draped herself in the them.
Once she discovered the snow, that was her. She loved picking the snow up and crumbling it through her fingers and when she discovered she could throw it to 'make it snow', she loved it even more. She sat in the tuff spot and threw the snow, before gathering it all back to her and starting again, over and over for maybe 10 minutes.
We had to leave the tuff spot to have dinner, but she went back to play again after tea, and this time enjoyed 'blowing out' the tealights and 'relighting' them.
The only issues we had were Isabelle putting the beads round her neck and her deciding that this was the activity to have in her mouth - creating a glittery mess of slobber. These are definitely not toys, and so it was so important to watch her at all times - especially when she was playing with the long string of beads.
Another successful activity, and one which has prompted me to set up more of these exploration style activities in the future.
