This week has been another week of battle of tuff trays with three completely different trays again for all children to enjoy!! Worthing’s tray was based around ice cream as ice cream has been a high interest of the children’s, now the weather has changed and the sun is coming out more. Highdown’s tray was based one of our national days, they had chosen to created their very own BBQ tray and the staff wanted the children to experience what it was like to have a BBQ by using their different senses. And finally Winklebury’s tray based around the book of the month story ‘The Very Hungry Worry Mosters’ the tray was based on emotions which using the children’s senses But which tray will be the winners this week??

Worthing’s ice cream tray

INTENT ~ I picked the tuff tray because I wanted something fun and creative and for the children to enjoy. I chose the theme around Ice cream because most children love ice cream and enjoy it and they get excited when they get ice cream. I also wanted a cool theme as we are coming into summer the children on the weekends or after nursery will get to get ice cream sometimes as it’s hot and it will cool them down. Some children might not have experienced the taste or the feel or even have looked at ice cream before

IMPLEMENTATION ~ What was used in Indi’s Tuff tray 

• Pink tissue paper 
• Purple tissue paper
• Red tissue paper
• White tissue paper
• Glue
• Blue Powdered paint 
• Editable ice cream cones 
• Ice cream truck 
• Crumbled Shortbread Biscuit pieces

IMPACT ~ The children got to play in the tuff tray and explore different textures and feelings and have fun.  They got to eat ice cream cones and get all messy with the blue powdered paint. They got to enjoy themselves and got to play with an ice cream truck and roll it through white paint and blue powdered paint. Preschool also got to enjoy eating crumbled shortbread pieces and got to place them inside their ice cream cones which they enjoyed eating too. They also learnt new words like Icream, cold and yummy and they were really excited to do the tuff tray they couldn’t keep their eyes off it and they were so desperate to get into it. I would change next time adding more ingredients and making it a bit more chaotic. 

Highdown’s BBQ tray

INTENT ~ The idea around this tuff tray was based around National BBQ day! I wanted to the children to experience what it is like to have a BBQ exploring all their different senses and being able to make their own role play foods. I wanted the children to be able to have a choice on what they would cook on the BBQ, choosing from their imagination or from their own experiences from having a BBQ. It also gave the children a chance to talk about fire safety when using a BBQ.

IMPLEMENTATION ~ For this tuff tray, I used a real BBQ and orange ribbon to represent the fire, this way the children could experience a real BBQ whilst keeping safe. I included real burger buns and play dough for the children to mould and make different meats to cook on the BBQ. To include different textures, I cut up squares of paper for the cheese slices and ripped up different shades of green for the shredded lettuce. I also included ketchup and vegetable stock cubes to add to the realness of the BBQ and for the children to explore their senses of smell. Lastly, I added a menu to allow the children to decide what they wanted to cook!

IMPACT ~ The children were so excited to play with this tuff tray! They all decided together that they wanted to cook burgers , hot dogs, chicken and halloumi and then have apple and orange juice to drink! The children moulded their play dough into the shape of a burger, put it on a spatular and hoover it over the BBQ. Some children decided that it would take 5 minutes to cook whilst others thought it would take 20mins. The children added the cheese and lettuce into their burgers and loved squeezing in lots and lots of ketchup! The children wanted to stand to stand around the tuff tray and drink from the cups, so they decided to fill the cups with water. The children extended the tray by using taco shells as their hot dog buns. Some children explained the different smells as ‘Yucky!’ whilst others said it smelled like ‘Strawberries!’

Winklebury’s ‘The Very Hungry Worry Monster’ tray

INTENT ~ Over the last few weeks since the children got their school places we have been discussing going to school. We have been doing school leavers group time and in that group we have   talking about how we are feeing about going to school. We chose to do the tray to help the children understand why they might feel the different ways and how we can help support them. The children have discusses well about their feelings and have talked about how they are feeling and how their friends are feeling.

IMPLEMENTATION ~ When the children saw the tray they stated to talk about the feelings the could see and hat feelings they were going to make with the play dough and could not wait to play in it. The grown up explained what the tray was about before they played. Then the children all explored the tray. The tray was designed around feelings and the children talked about what faces they were making while they played. In the tray it had purple pasta, green rice, shaving foam and red gloop to help the children explore the tray from a sensory aspect, then there was different face cut outs and play dough to make the different feelings.

IMPACT ~ The children loved this tray, they recognised it straight away. The children explored the whole tray, understood the way of the tray when playing and enjoyed all the different textures. They were exploring their different feelings and talking about hy they feel that way. They all were encouraging their other peers to play that weren’t in the tray. Hearing the children speak to each other was so lovely. 

THE WINNERS THIS WEEK WAS…………………… HIGHDOWN!!!