Learning and Development: To the touch
Jean Evans
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
As part of regular provision, children in the Foundation Stage Unit at Chilton Primary School have free access to a range of malleable materials.
'We decided to enhance this experience by creating an attractive display to record children's vocabulary and reactions as they explored the materials. This extended and encouraged their use of appropriate language,' says reception teacher Jill Anderson.
Planned learning intentions
- To continue to be interested, excited and motivated to learn
- To extend vocabulary, exploring the meanings and sounds of new words
- To investigate objects and materials by using all of their senses as appropriate
- To respond in a variety of ways to what they see, hear, smell, touch and feel
Resources
A shallow container; malleable materials, such as shaving foam, jelly, cooked pasta; handwashing facilities; aprons or overalls; digital camera; printer; backing paper; white paper
Step by step
- We present children with a changing variety of malleable materials. We introduce new textures, colours and smells, such as green rice pudding or strawberry jelly, alongside favourites like pasta and shaving foam.
- Staff frequently sit with childen to encourage talk about what they see, feel, smell and hear.
- Words children use are noted ('wibbly wobbly' jelly) and photographs are taken. Staff make suggestions to extend vocabulary, such as drawing attention to the 'splattery' sound of rice dropping into the tray.
- We set up a display of photos and words on the board behind the table entitled 'How does it feel?' We refer to this often and change the content to reflect current materials in use.
- As children become experienced they make their own suggestions for interesting mixtures. They also like to add objects, such as small-world characters, to see what happens as they become coated in layers of thick gloop.
- At present we are concentrating on the sense of touch with our display. This could be adapted to focus on sounds or smells.
Vicky Cornwell is the Foundation Stage Unit Leader and a reception class teacher, Jill Anderson is a reception class teacher and Julia Watson is the nursery teacher at Chilton Primary School, County Durham. They spoke to Jean Evans.
