Home-made recyclable water wall – this will encourage hand/eye coordination, physical development, knowledge of the world, attention and communication, and have some maths – numbers, shape, space and measure!!!
All you need is a fence, wall or panel of wood, empty milk bottles, any plastic containers or guttering. An assortment of different sized pouring containers, jugs, ladles and a water catching bowl. And water of course!!!!
First, choose what you’re going to fix these plastic bottles too. You will need to either use a tie or nails to secure to the fence. Cut the bottom off the bottles to allow the water to pass through. Allow the children to help decide the exciting journey the water will take down the bottles, guttering and containers. Make it as long and exciting as you can. Remember to allow each bottle to rest on the next to allow water to pass.
The children will fill their cups/pots/ladles with water and watch it run down their waterwall and have fun collecting it at the bottom. Use terms such as “its starting at the top and falling down to the bottom”, its going fast or slow, trickling, flowing”. You could ask the older children to estimate how many cups it will take to fill the bowl!
Additionally, you could add food colouring to the water to add that little extra WOW. Let them explore, get cool and have so much fun. ENJOY!!!!!
How about ‘Going on a Bug Hunt’!!
This could be done in your garden or on your daily exercise walk around. You can adapt it to suit your child. I like to chant the rhyme/story (to the tune of ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’!) Makes it really fun.
“We’re going on a BUG HUNT, I hope we find lots of them, what a beautiful day, we’re not scared, uh oh, grass, long wavy grass, we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, oh no, we’ve got to go through it ….. swishy swashy swishy swashy. And so on …. Thick ozzy mud (squelch), a deep cold river …. Or puddle!! (splashy splashy), a forest (trees) or crunchy twigs (crackly bark and twigs)” … and so on
.........And hopefully you may come across some bugs too, as it is a BUG HUNT!!
You may need: planks or cushions, a sheet, twigs/logs/leaves, a camera or phone to take photos of the bugs you may find.
To enhance this activity you could lay out planks or cushions for walking across to an area in your garden for the children to search, put a sheet on the floor for the children to crawl under to another bush or area, some sticks to crunch under their feet and look for woodlouse!! You could be using terms such as those used in the Bear Hunt story, making sounds with your voices of the sounds they may hear on their bug hunt trail. Ask your children what they think it might sound like, what it looks like crawling under the sheet, what sort of bugs do they think they might find in there, big or little bugs, use positional language (under, over, through, behind, on top).
Extension: How about letting your child take a photo of the bugs they find, their habitat and of them balancing and crawling around, maybe print them off at some point so they can revisit their experience by sticking them down and talking to you about it …… and with us. It would be so lovely to see your pictures too. Happy hunting!!!!
This activity focusses on key areas of the EYFS: Communication and language, feelings (PSED), physical development (crawling, crouching, balancing), Knowledge of the world (the world and technology), maths (positional language and counting), and EAD (cutting and sticking).