This week has been the battle of the Fire inspired trays as well as a King’s coronation themed tray. Winklebury’s tuff tray was based around fire safety the children were able to talk about how hot fires are and not to go near them without an adult but they also pretended to melt marshmallows around the camp fire. Worthing created the King’s castle, the children were able to role play with different royal characters and talked about the different people who are in the Royal family And Highdown created a fire using playdough and rice and talked about what happens when the fire alarm goes off at MonkeyMoos. But who will be the winners?

Worthing – King’s Coronation

INTENT – The intent of this tuff tray is to encourage the children’s imagination as well as to celebrate the King’s coronation! Through providing a small world experience it encourages the children to be creative and engage in pretend play. This can help to expand their imagination as well as help them to incorporate their real life experiences into their play. This activity also aims to support the children with their communication and language development as it provides opportunities for learning new words and offers a range of questions. On top of this, this activity is also intent on developing the children’s friendship skills through role playing together.

IMPLEMENT – This activity was created by adding rice crispies to the base of the tray to create an invitation for a sensory touch experience. For Buckingham Palace I added a range of different sized building blocks in a row and then added paper onto the blocks to resemble the windows. I then added flags around the tray using lollipops so that the children can hold them. I then added some small world characters from the royal family and placed them in front of the Palace for the coronation. 

IMPACT – This coronation tuff tray was enjoyed by all of the children! Upon approaching the tray they instantly enjoyed picking up the flags and waving them in the air. Some children particularly enjoyed playing with the rice crispies by repeatedly lifting and dropping them into the tray, crunching them together with their fine motor skills and some wanted to taste test them! The children also enjoyed pulling the blocks apart and re creating their own building for the King’s coronation! On top of this some of the children picked up a wider range of vocabulary such as “king” and “palace!”

Winklebury – Fire Safety

INTENT – This week the children and staff have been talking about fire safety and weather changes. The tray was set as a controlled fire with a fire engine, a well loved book based on the programme fireman sam, marshmallows {cotton wool} chocolate and sticks to hold the marshmallows. 

IMPLEMENT – When the children saw the tray they automatically said FIRE! We had a discussion on how hot fire is and we do not touch fire , only firemen/women can put out a fire when it is not a planned one. We also talked about safe fires where we can have fires with marshmallows with grown ups. The children enjoyed putting the cotton wool onto the sticks then placing them over the fire to toast them. The children spoke about the different colours that is in fire too. The children moved the fire engine around the tray imagining they were putting out the fire once all there marshmallows were toasted.

IMPACT – The children really enjoyed this tray, it gave the children to use their imagination and experience something that they may not have ever done before . We had amazing conversations about fire safety and that it is ok to have fires at home in our garden as long as their is a grown up supervising them a all time. The children also used their fine motor skills to place the marshmallows on to the sticks and was very happy with their achievements!

Highdown – FireFighters Day

INTENT – This tuff tray was based around international Firefighters Day. The children have always shown an interest in emergency services and often role play as doctors taking care of each other and firefighters putting out fires around MonkeyMoos when there is a fire. I wanted all the children to be involved and have fun whilst learning.

IMPLEMENT – For this tuff tray, I dyed some rice and play dough a red/orange colour which the children often refer to the colour of fire, I set out a list of fire safety step for the children to talk about what we do if there was a fire, whilst also adding pictures of firefighters and the equipment they use to put out the fires. I wanted the children to be able to share their fire safety knowledge with each other and learning something new whist our SEN children were able to explore different textures such as sticky and cold rice, soft and squishy playdough and look at visuals such as pictures of fireman, fire engines and fire hose.

IMPACT – Many of the children had been eager and excited to explore the fire themed tuff tray all morning, edging closer to the tray to get involved. The children taking part gathered around the tray and begun talking about how to stay safe in the event of a fire and the procedures we follow at MonkeyMoos, the children shouted out ‘the fire alarm makes a loud noise when there’s a fire!’, ‘we call 999 for emergencies!’ The adult then asked the children if they knew where to go in the event of a fire and they all ran to the door to look at the assembly area, pointing to the trees where we line up ‘we line up there and listen to our names to make sure everyone is safe!’ The children then went to look at the different equipment used and pretended to use cups to scoop up the fire to put it out.

The winners this week is……………. WORTHING!!