Day 2 of the 30 Days to Transform Your Play

Today is day 2 of the interactive series  30 days to transform your play by Kate from An everyday story and Rachel from Racheous.



Day 2: Cull toys

Today's challenge comes at a perfect time. I have actually been purging toys (on and off) for a good week now and I am on my way to Ikea tonight to purchase some storage (Expedit unit, trolley, cardboard boxes to serve as continent boxes and plastic boxes to serve as toy rotation storage). I haven't been to Ikea for a long time and I think I might get carried away. 

The problem I find with the entire toy presentation and rotation is the lack of storage space or perhaps the lack of organisational skills. We live in a 90 m square three bedroom semi-detached house and we are lucky enough to have a fairly spacious lounge with a dedicated playarea, but I still find it difficult to keep everything tidy and accessible.

Most of our toys and books are displayed in a large Expedit unit. We keep toys in baskets (e.g. cars, figurines, blocks, balls,...), which is all good until they start to over spill - this is always the case with Mr A's cars. 

Our arts and crafts shelving unit and the children's table are located in the dining area and also need some decluttering. Our music / instrument area is next to the fireplace and I am happy with it.

At present, toys for rotation are randomly stored in the upstairs airing cupboard and stashed in a wooden chest which serves as a nature table. I won't take the photo of the airing cupboard - I think it is not too difficult to imagine a mess containing my sewing supplies, children's toys and books, outgrown clothes and a couple of lampshades. 

On my to do list:

• Donate

I would like to donate the giant Noddy toy and all Noddy books, some of the toy cars (how to convince Mr A?), baby touchy feely books, baby toys that I haven't donated already and little tikes climbing frame from the garden.

I have decided to give some of the nice duplicate toys to the grandparents to keep them at their house or their holiday flat.

• Trash

I am quite good at this. I can't stand broken toys, so they go straight in the bin. However I still need to get rid off half ripped books that even our magic sellotape can't fix anymore.

• Store / temporarily remove

We have a story corner / reading corner in our playarea which I love, but it does not get used often, as children prefer to sit on the sofa. So, I am deciding whether to remove the story corner and just space out the furniture / baskets / mirrors / plant in the playarea.

• Organise toy rotation storage

I need to decide where to store toys for rotation and stick to it. I would love to have everything in one room, ideally with a giant storage space behind some hidden mirrored door. I think I might attempt to tackle our airing cupboard and repeat the same trash / donate/ keep action for clothes and other items.

However, given that my brother and his little family of four are coming over for a long weekend, I can't imagine how I could end up with more organised playarea...

Day 1 of the 30 Days to Transform Your Play

I am taking part in an interactive series that Kate from An everyday story and Rachel from Racheous have prepared for us mummies: 30 days to transform your play



Kate and Rachel will be guiding us through a series of daily assignments over the next month to help us create more meaningful play. I haven't been so excited about an assignment / homework for such a long time, probably since I've completed my PhD nearly 10 years ago...

I've been reflecting on the first assignment for a good hour now. It feels like I should make it into a monthly routine, so that I never stand still when it comes to supporting meaningful play:

Day 1: Why do you want to make changes to the way you approach your child’s play?

- to give Mr A (4 yrs) and Miss R (2 yrs) freedom to explore and express themselves in a meaningful way (embracing 100 languages of children)
- to raise happy children / family :)
- to encourage my children to play together more often and play nicely
- to make sure I provide ample opportunities for my children to express themselves
- to encourage creativity
- to support independent yet meaningful play
- to feed their interests with meaningful materials / activities
- to parent with abundance vs scarcity
- to get the right amount of white space 
- so that I am able to say YES more often
- to create a flexible routine which will accommodate 2 children & 2 adults, which will take into account multiple inteligences and which will support child-led learning 
- to avoid buying new and rather use the existing materials / recycled materials in different ways

Insects and reptiles are my favourite animals (Project II)

'Do you want your children or students to love learning? Don’t say “Here, we know what’s best for you — sit down, be quiet, and listen.” But also don’t just say “Go, do whatever you want.” Do better than that. Support their interests and their self-chosen work fully — with your attention, your time, your space, and your cold hard cash. Invest in their interests. Invest in their talents. Instead of letting them ride in the back seat while you take them on a wonderful adventure, show them how to drive the car.' (Project Based Homeschooling)

Over the last few months, Mr A's main interest has slowly shifted from Sea Life (Project I) to Terrestrial invertebrates and Reptiles (Project II). 

I am learning to step back and observe. Then I help him find real material of interest (soil with earthworms, stones with woodlice, caterpillars, frogs), tools for exploration (books, magnifying glass, microscope), take him to places (museums), show him online resources documentaries, you tube videos). 

Mr A makes it very clear whether he likes something or not. Whenever we pick up a book, he bluntly ignores all the fluffy mammals and feathery birds saying 'I don't like those!'. Also, he always speaks about specific group/species which I find quite fascinating; Johnston's chameleon, Tokay gecko, gharial, dung beetle, stag beetle, trap-door spider, orchid pray mantis,... Even Miss R can recognise a gecko now... She has been told so many times :)

And this is what we have been up to.

We watched our caterpillar turning into a chrysalis and then into a moth. How lucky is this! And how precious to witness those AHA moments in your children...

 

We had a gecko birthday cake. 

We did a little bit of alphabet work (very little indeed). See how the selection of animals reflects Mr A's current interests :)

 

We explored various crocodile species at the crocodile zoo. Children were able to handle a baby Nile crocodile, which was exciting. 

                                                

                            


We visited the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which reopened after 14 months of renovations works. Mr A really enjoyed exploring various animals, while Miss R just kept running around and poking her nose into heating vents. On our visit, they had a workshop with live insects, which fitted really well into Mr A's current interests. 'Leaf insect is my favourite.'

We painted, sculpted with playdough and played with loose parts.

                                

I drew a gecko outline for Mr A to paint, decorate with glue and fabric, colour in,...  And this is want happened. He picked up a red felt tip pen and scribbled all over. And then he explained: 'The dots mean this is a Tokay gecko. The circle on the tail is an egg, where a baby gecko will come from. The red lines are veins with blood, which carries oxygen. Some of the veins popped out.' 

We were pretending to be geckos climbing trees (barefoot of course) and hiding under a suspended bench. And much more animal pretend play with daddy... Usually fairly noisy...

                               

We love love exploring our garden. There is never a shortage of earth worms, spiders, woodlice, ladybirds and if we are extremely lucky we even get frogs, toads and newts.

                            

We have been watching youtube videos about a range of reptiles and terrestrial invertebrates and Mr A finds this dung beetle video absolutely hilarious. There is so much giggling that I end up laughing just watching him...

Sharks, manta rays, giant squids, mud skippers... (Project I)

For weeks Mr A has been carrying around a handful of magazine cut-outs of ocean animals and all the nature books that have anything to do with Sea Life (Project I). We even borrowed a book about sharks from the library, which he refuses to return back.

                                       'This is MY shark book!' 

Some of our favourite books:

- Maurice Pledger: Sounds of the Wild, Ocean (Miss R loves this one too)

- John Norris Wood: Nature Hide and Seek, Oceans

- Usborne Discovery, Sharks

Since then, we have been pretend playing sea animals on a daily basis. Daddy is really god at that - it gets a bit loud at times, but Mr A  and Miss R absolutely love it. 

We also watched several episodes of Blue World by Jonathan Bird. These are great for children; each episode is only 10 min long, discusses one animal and does not seem to be too scary for my boy.

We visited the local pet shop, National Salife Birmingham and then built a sealife centre at home.

                  
                                           


Mr A painted a whale shark and a manta ray (I should probably mention that painting activities only last for about 5 min and then he is off), while his little sister was happily munching on her art...


                            

We made the Atlantic Ocean in a glass bowl... This process took so much patience and focus; he was trying to stack all the large stones into some sort of tower and it kept collapsing over and over again.

  

  

We sculpted numerous manta rays, lionfish, hammerhead sharks and squids... And ate some playdough...

                            

I love how we are learning together. For example, I have never heard of a wobegong shark before.