EYFS Activities: five ways to use… £ shop treasures

Summer is the perfect time to plan a raid on your local pound shops. They are currently full of camping equipment, gardening supplies, DIY materials and outdoor games, and just £5 could revitalise your outdoor play.

Not all pound shops will sell all of these items, so it’s an excuse to visit several and browse the aisles, thinking about the ‘affordances’ that these items could have back in your setting.

1 TARPAULIN PEGS

Grey plastic tarp pegs have a ‘flat’ head so are perfect for pressing through fabric to pin it to the ground. They score over traditional metal tent pegs because they are generally easier for children to use independently, they aren’t sharp, they don’t stick out of the ground creating trip hazards and they will hold fabric in place. A packet of ten tarp pegs, and a tool for pulling them out again: £1. Push the boat out and buy a rubber mallet for hammering them in – also £1!

2 SILVER SURVIVAL BLANKETS

A packet of two silver emergency blankets is £1. If you can afford to buy several packs, do, as while they are fabulous fun, they don’t last forever. Silver blankets are great for space dens (caveat: they won’t survive tarp pegs!), superhero cloaks, robot outfits and displaying collections of found objects so they reflect and sparkle. Emergency blankets will also keep children warm and dry through those inevitable summer showers. Pound shops don’t sell these year-round, so I usually top up supplies during the summer to keep me going, as they are more expensive elsewhere.

3 PICTURE FRAMES

Check out the craft aisle at the pound shops – there really is treasure there, and lots of it is much cheaper than educational suppliers. Five tiny wooden picture frames are £1, and are plain on one side – perfect for decorating – and embellished on the other. I like to use these to encourage children to look really carefully at the world around them.

Ask children to place the frame somewhere interesting and then tell you exactly what they can see – describing colours, shapes, relative sizes, any patterns they recognise and what materials they spot. You could do the same exercise but this time holding the frame up to the horizon so that much more can be seen through it.

Talk about distance, perspective, size, man-made or natural… there is tons of potential for STEM learning and language using what on the face of it are creative art resources. And then, of course, use the frames to compose micro-pictures!

4 CAR WASHING MITTS

Fluffy microfibre mitts, for washing and polishing car bodywork, are such tactile resources that children won’t be able to resist them, wet or dry.

They are particularly helpful in encouraging children to make vigorous upper-body movements, and work the rear deltoids – the big muscle group at the top of the back. Strength, flexibility and agility in this muscle group is vital if children are to control their fine motor movements, such as the tripod grip.

In addition to polishing windows and making bubbles, ask children to pick up objects from the ground wearing the mitts, or reach up to grab items suspended from a tree or fence: it’s remarkably difficult to do wearing outsized fluffy gloves.

5 HOSES AND SPRINKLERS

Combine hose attachments, irrigation systems and sprinklers with a few pound shop mini-tarpaulins for a bargain, homemade slip ’n’ slide – remember to peg them down with your pound shop tarp pegs. If you can find hose attachments that require twisting or squeezing in order to release water, add these to the haul, as they are great for developing hand and arm muscles, with children’s perseverance rewarded with bursts of water.

Benefit-risk assessment

Bear in mind that pound shop treasures are not designed to be toys. Carry out a dynamic risk assessment on each item – in other words, use common sense. It’s not a bargain if it breaks after one use, or can’t cope with lots of children wanting to use it.

Find out more about the ‘affordances’ of loose parts, here: www.nurseryworld.co.uk/digital_assets/643/EE-Free-and-found.pdf