Here's a look at a couple of our favourite art materials that we just restocked ready for creating ... Some of our new brightly coloured textas all ready to create! Creativity is important in our home and something that I intentionally think about when setting up our spaces at home for play and creating. Having a range of choices of art materials available for my kids to create with is important. I make sure that we have lots of colour options and different materials to creat

Let's create a magical underwater land for mermaids! Small world play is so wonderful for imagination, developing oral language skills and vocabulary + developing the ability to make up stories and characters. This blog post walks through step by step how I set up this mermaid themed small world table for my kids to play with. *This play idea is for children ages 3+ as it contains small parts. All play was supervised by an adult. Please ensure you actively supervise all play.

Let's invite play with these beautiful colourful blocks and a mirror! A simple invitation to play with a mirror and blocks This was such a simple invitation to play that I set up last week for Miss 3. I sat with her while she played and showed her how to create towers on the mirror with some of the lucite blocks. Later in the day after she had lost interest in building I added in some little figurines, which drew her interest into playing again. Then I showed her how to stack

Here's a look at some of the play, learning and creative ideas that we have done over the last month. I thought I would try a new type of blog post this week - a look at a few of the different things we have done over the last month. We have enjoyed some water play, colour matching, bookish play, wet felting and small world play. I love to set up play invitations and get creative with my girls. I hope you find some inspiration today to help create some playful moments for the

One small world invitation ... still getting play after 1 month. As I write this blog post my girls are playing with the small world table, adding in animals to create a much larger small world. We are now over a month into this small world table. I set it up after I had bought the wooden dolls house out of my classroom. I made the most simple additions to the small world this morning and all 3 girls were straight into playing again ...

I recently changed up what was on our open-ended play shelves in our play space for the first time in a little while, so I decided to write a blog post about what we currently have out on our toy shelves. This play space is in the corner of our lounge room. We use a white house bookshelf that I bought from Mocka Australia quite a few years back now. This shelf has room on the floor in front of it that can be used for play and building creations. In the classroom I would use a

So simple to make ... so beautiful for play! Colourful loose parts are used to create these simple jars! We love loose parts play ideas! This one is a simple way to use little tiny loose parts and some jars to make a beautiful resource that can be used for light play, building and more! These have been used for building towers and other creations with. We have also used them on the light panel several times now since making them. You could glue the lids on (or tape them) if y

A quick look at our current play space set ups to invite play. Our small world table - all ready for imaginative play! A big welcome to you if this is your first time visiting the blog and welcome back to our Playful Learning community email subscribers! It was time for a quick refresh and tidy up of our kids play space at home. Our kids art space and small world table were looking very messy and not getting much attention. This is how I know when it is time to make a change

Let's get creative and explore light + colours using a light panel and beautiful resources ... Learning through play - exploring colour and capacity on the light panel Light play is not only beautiful, but also offers many opportunities for learning through play in a hands-on and enjoyable way! Simple materials, when added to the light panel can create the most inviting and engaging invitations to play. We have an A3 sized light panel that we use at home for play. It is store

Print and add in some colouring or other art materials for some calming mindfulness time. These kindness colouring pages are perfect for a mindful moment while colouring and listening to some relaxing music! Mindfulness colouring pages are easy to use and work well at home when a calm moment is needed or in the classroom for a calming activity (e.g. after recess/lunch time). They are great for some mindfulness time as they encourage you to be fully present in the moment as yo

Let's celebrate the Christmas season with some fun themed invitations to play and create! A red and green Christmas themed tinker tray of loose parts for open-ended play The wait until Christmas is such an exciting time! It can also be very busy, so I use the same types of setups/play ideas each year with my kids to make things simpler. This blog post has 13 simple Christmas play ideas and crafts for kids. I have a box of fun play things for the kids for Christmas that I put

One easy to make sensory base = lots of fun! See how we reused this for extra play time ... Snowy sensory play tray - Perfect for easy winter themed play! Sensory play trays are so much fun! All 3 of my kids enjoy playing with this type of tray. Not only are they simple to put together, but they can easily be reused over multiple days/even weeks for extra play time! Sensory play can be very calming and it's also a great way to develop fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination,