Creating with Materials:
- Mix two colours together and find out what happens
- Try different ways to join materials when making junk models
- Make marks with a variety of materials such as paint, chalk, mud!
- Combine different materials to add texture and create different effects.
Being Imaginative and Expressive:
- Encourage role play games and dressing up
- Set up a stage and put on a show
- Set up a story scene using toys or small word and ask the children to tell a story using the resources set out
- Use boxes or house hold objects and turn them into props for your story, e.g. a box for a boat, a colander for a space helmet, pans for a drum set
- Play instruments and explore how to change the sounds, e.g. make it louder or quieter
- Sing different songs and nursery rhymes
Activities to do outdoors
- Collect lots of boxes of different sizes and a couple of big boxes if possible. Collect other resources and materials such as foil, paper, wrappers, empty plastic cartons/pots, glue stick/sellotape, etc. Think of what the big box could be made into – a space rocket, a house or caravan, a car or truck, or even maybe a dinosaur. With help from an adult cut parts of the box if needed to make your model. Decorate with other junk that has been collected and/or paint /pencils /chalks or crayons. Take a photo to send to school.
- Using chalks draw pictures on the floor or walls outside or if available rolls of old wallpaper – use the end of the chalk, the side of the chalk to make patterns and shapes.
- On your daily walk collect leaves /twigs/small stones, (N.B. consider how and where these items can be collected safely). When back at home make a simple collage picture by laying them out flat on a piece of paper / on the grass or on the flags/patio area. What can you create – an animal, a scene, a vehicle, you or your family. Make it as small or as big as you can. Take a photo and send to school.
- Using natural materials– twigs, leaves, small stones, shells – make a small house or den outside for a small toy – dinosaur, hedgehog, fairy – make sure it is somewhere safe so it can’t be squashed or blown away. Make up a story about your outdoor toy house.... ‘The dinosaur tea party’, ‘The dog who was feeling sad....’
- On your walk each day or outside your house make a sound diary – make a list each day of all the sounds you can hear for a few minutes or on your walk – traffic, people, cars, emergency vehicles, birds, water, etc. How many different sounds did you hear in a week? Can you make the sounds you heard? Can your family guess the sound you are making?
- Make a stage outside, find some props or dressing up clothes and act out a favourite story or make up your own performance /show. Make tickets and invite your family to watch the show.
Useful websites and links