This week the children at MonkeyMoos have had the chance to explore some more amazing trays!!! All three trays this week were amazing and very inviting and the children were able to learn new and different things. Highdown created a their tray around ‘National Post Day’ the children really enjoyed designed their very own post cards. Winklebury created their tray around the children’s interest which currently its sensory play, animals and vehicles, the children really enjoyed using there imaginative skills!

Who will be this weeks winners…………

Winklebury’s Sensory Tuff Tray

INTENT ~ This week’s tuff tray was based around the children’s shared interest of sensory play and small word toys! All of our children love sensory play and getting messy aswell as animals and vehicles, so I created a sensory town for the children to play and explore in!. The tray invited the children to come and play in it and encouraged the older children to socialise and talk about their interests. 

IMPLEMENTATION ~ This tray consisted of 4 areas of sensory play, one area had purple penne pasta, one had red spaghetti, one had green rice and the other had flour. In each sensory area I placed a zoo animal in. To divide these sensory textures I placed road markings in the middle to make a cross section and then placed some vehicles on the road markings that I had asked some children pick out from the vehicle box. 

IMPACT ~ The children really enjoyed playing in this tray, they were exploring the different sensory textures and telling the grown ups all about it! One little boy looked at his grown up and said “wow this red pasta is so slimy”. They were all really engaged in play and enjoyed using their imaginations to further their play! A few children were pretending to drive to their homes and talking about what they could see on their way home “wow look a monkey is hiding in the mud”. The children were also amazing at sharing the animals and vehicles with each other and taking turns in each sensory area which really encouraged their PSE development which is a next step for a few of them!. Overall the children had so much fun getting messy and enjoyed this group interaction with each other!

Highdown’s post card tuff tray

INTENT ~ This tuff tray was based around National Post Day. I set up a beach themed tuff tray where the children could design and write their own post cards to post. I wanted the children to gain lots of communication from this tray whether it was talking to their friends, listening to others, or initiating conversation with themselves. I wanted a tray which would cover lots of areas and help someone is each way that maybe different to someone else.

IMPLEMENTATION ~ As I wanted a tray to help all children in different ways, I added lots of different items and ways for the children to gain their skills. I added lots of colours where the children could communicate. I added spades for them to practice their independence skills as well as motor skills. Around the tray I added different pictures of items that you would find at the beach, and with this it could allow them to talk about pass experiences. To help represent National Post Day I added post card templates and different coloured pencils for the children to get creative with and design.

IMPACT ~ As the children stood around the tray, they all noticed straight away it was beach theme and began to talk about when they have been to the beach, who with and what they got up to. Whilst the children were using the spades, they noticed that they couldn’t build a sandcastle with the spades as they had no way to store the sand. With this the children used their skills and knowledge and looked around the room to see what they could find, they found cups and other containers that they used to create their sandcastles and added maths to this by counting how many they had made. Some of the children who do not like the feel of sand much still got involved by holding the spades and identifying the sea creatures that they could see swimming. As the tray was based around post day, they found the post cards and pencils and created their own pictures, some practiced their writing. Overall their was great communication throughout the tray and they all enjoyed the beach which was continued on to the next day as it was a big interest to them.