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By CreativeSTAR Around my home town, there are some horse chestnut trees which always have a good supply of conkers. They are a much sought after fruit with children looking for and commenting on the availability of the conkers. I now plot some of my walks to pass these trees at this time of year. Conkers hide themselves remarkably well...

Written by Creative STAR Going back to school after the holidays is always exciting. If you are getting a new class, then often the first few days are spent on introductory activities which help everyone get to know a bit more about each other. One activity I often used to do was, “Twenty Things You Need To Find Out.” The...

Written by Creative STAR Investigating reflections is one way into symmetry and can be linked to scientific and artistic explorations. Back in the outdoor space, more specific experiences can be provided for young children based upon their own discoveries in play. Various reflective surfaces can be created or found. If an outdoor space is being developed think about making symmetrical...

It can be really difficult to step away from over planning for children’s experiences, but open-ended resources are the key to reducing workload whilst enhancing learning. Here are 10 reasons why you need to start embracing open-ended play.  Open-ended play encourages creativity, it allows children to use their imagination and come up with their own ideas and solutions. For example...

written by Creative STAR Many years ago years ago, I started blogging about accessories that make a difference to facilitating learning and play outdoors. I was participating in a twilight workshop and one of the participants made a sage comment along the lines of being perfectly comfortable knowing her literacy and maths outside but lacking the practical know-how about outdoor...

A really simple idea to encourage or extend schema play is to provide schema baskets. Creating these baskets is effective because they take up little space in your environment, can be easily changed and reignites children’s curiosity as resources are displayed and arranged in new ways. Shop Our Wicker Baskets Schema baskets are similar to treasure baskets in that you...

Number lines Adding number lines to the end of your ramps, channels and tunnels will encourage children to explore number and length. You can start off very simple by creating your own number line from 1-3 and then gradually extend this until the children are ready to start measuring in cms or inches using meter rulers or measuring tapes.  The beauty...

Last week I told you that schemas are my secret to creating invitations that engage and entice young children. This is because children have an innate curiosity about the world and how things work; through repeated patterns of play children explore, theorise and learn. Recently I have been adding ramps, channels and tunnels to many of the invitations I provide...

A question I get asked time and time again is how to encourage children to play with open-ended materials. Often, we go on training for loose parts play and we buy the open-ended resources but the children’s response to them just doesn’t live up to the expectation we had. If this sounds like you then don’t worry because there is...

Written by Creative STAR Some practitioners work in settings and schools where they cannot leave equipment out overnight. Usually storage space is pretty tight too. Thus I wanted to look at ways of creating simple, portable water walls which children could create themselves. Many years ago I did class cover in a large city school with mainstream and additional support...