Enabling Environments: Let's explore ... caves

Those of us who were fortunate to live near or visit a cave as a child will remember those feelings of trepidation and excitement upon first entering that dark and mysterious place. How deep might the cave go? What kinds of creatures might we encounter? Will we be lucky enough to find any carvings or cave paintings? The following activities aim to capture that sense of anticipation and exploit the children's interest in these exciting spaces.

CAVE EXPLORING

This activity is best planned for the start of a term so the cave is built before a holiday to allow time for potential inhabitants to move in.

Adult role

• Make a cave in the outdoor area by fastening a tarpaulin to fencing. If possible, try to ensure the cave is dark inside by creating a small entrance and making it as deep a space allows.

• Line the interior with hessian and place rocks and boulders around the inside edges. Make the cave minibeast-friendly by putting some soil and rotting leaves around the rocks.

• Leave the cave over the holidays. When you return to the setting, look inside to see if anything has moved in.

• Provide the children with equipment like torches, magnifiers and hard hats, and invite them to explore the cave before reporting back about what they find.

• Provide role-play costumes to encourage the children to pretend they are cave explorers.

Learning opportunities

CL: Introduces a storyline or narrative into their play.

UW: Can talk about some of the things they have observed, such as animals and found objects.

EAD: Engages in imaginative role play.

WHO LIVES IN A HOUSE LIKE THIS?

Use the picture book Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura to help explain to the children how people lived during the Stone Age.

Adult role

• Share this story about a little boy who falls into a hole and ends up in the Stone Age. He encounters a little girl called Og and her tribe and sees their way of life.

• Refer to everything the boy experiences and ask the children to consider what it might be like to live in a cave. Do they think it would be warm or cold, dry or damp, light or dark and comfortable or uncomfortable? What would they sleep on? What would they eat? How would they cook? What would they play with? How would they see in the dark?

• Explain that in some parts of the world, such as China and Turkey, there are people who still live in caves. Do an image search on the internet for cave dwellers in China to find pictures of the interiors and exteriors of modern cave dwellings. What differences can the children see between these modern cave homes and Og's cave in the story?

• Use information books and the internet to find out what kind of creatures live in caves. Prompt the children to consider the location of a cave in relation to its inhabitants - coastal and mountain caves, for instance. Help the children to think about why certain creatures like to live in caves. For example, nocturnal creatures like bats may like caves because they are dark and relatively undisturbed.

Learning opportunities

CL: Begins to understand 'how' and 'why' questions.

L: Knows that information can be retrieved from books and computers.

UW: Talks about how environments might vary from one another.

CAVE PAINTINGS

Use the book Cave Baby by Julia Donaldson and Emily Gravett as inspiration for getting the children to create their own cave paintings.

Adult role

• Share this story about a baby who loves to paint on the walls of his cave home. His parents are not so keen on the mess and one night a woolly mammoth takes him to its cave where he scribbles over as many walls as he likes.

• Look at the illustrations and talk about the pictures created by the baby and his mother inside their cave. Talk about what they are painting. What is it that interests them? Point out that animals, hunting and food will have been of great importance to them. Take examples from the children to illustrate your point. For example, James usually paints pictures of tractors because that is what he is most interested in.

• Do an image search on the internet for cave paintings. Show these to the children. Talk about the colours and composition. For example, most cave paintings are black or brown and many are quite simple line drawings. Explain how some paintings were created by first carving the picture into the rock before filling it with colour.

• Encourage the children to create their own paintings and pictures. Give them a range of art materials to experiment with.

• Roll out some air-drying clay for the children to carve out pictures. Use a knitting needle to pierce a hole in the top of each slab. Let the clay dry and then let the children paint their pictures. Display the clay pictures on the walls of the setting.

• Allow the children to use playground chalks to draw pictures on the walls of the outdoor area.

• Create a role-play cave. If outdoors, position the cave in a place where the children can draw directly onto some walls using chalks. If indoors, line the inside with black sugar paper to enable the children to draw on the walls.

Learning opportunities

UW: Develops an understanding of changes over time.

EAD: Uses paintbrushes and clay tools competently and appropriately.

EAD: Creates simple representations of events, people and objects.

THE REAL THING

Take the children to visit a real cave. The following venues offer educational resources and tours: Kents Cavern in Devon (www.kents-cavern.co.uk), White Scar Cave in Yorkshire (www.whitescarcave.co.uk), The National Showcaves Centre for Wales (www.showcaves.co.uk), Clearwell Caves in Gloucestershire (www.clearwellcaves.co.uk) and Poole's Cavern in Derbyshire (www.poolescavern.co.uk).

As a follow-up activity to your cave visit, help the children to create their own stalagmites and stalactites using baking soda. Find step-by-step instructions on the internet at http://chemistry.about.com/od/crystalrecipes/a/sodacrystals.htm

SONGS, RHYMES, GAMES

Recite the rhyme Tip Toe Through a Cave in a large space with the accompanying actions:

Tip toe, tip toe, we're creeping through a cave (tip toe around)

Tip toe, tip toe, we're feeling really brave (hold arms in the air)

Stop shhh, stop shhh, did you hear that growl? (fingers on lips)

QUICK RUN, QUICK RUN, A BEAR IS ON THE PROWL! (run around growling)

Ask the children if they have any suggestions for other creatures they could find in the cave. Then help them to think of rhyming words for another verse.

MORE IDEAS

• Involve the children in building a cave. Ask them for suggestions about what objects and materials to use. Prompt them to think about how to create a sturdy and safe structure.

• Re-enact We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury.

• Create small-world caves using upturned margarine tubs covered in modroc or papier-mache.

• Challenge the children to make caves out of clay or playdough.

RESOURCES

To support the suggested activity ideas:

Cave paintings - black and brown sugar paper, chalks, charcoal, pastels, paints, air-drying clay, sculpting tools and playground chalks. If you have the funds, a mark-making cave is available from www.ttsgroup.co.uk (£179. 95).

Cave exploring - tarpaulin, hessian, rocks, soil, hard hats, torches, magnifiers, role-play explorer costumes.

BOOKS

• Bright Stanley and the Cave Monster by Matt Buckingham (Little Tiger Press). Little fish Bright Stanley is exploring a cave with his friends when they think they may have encountered a monster.

• Rainbow Fish and the Sea Monster's Cave by Marcus Pfister (North-South Books). Rainbow Fish volunteers to go in search of some medicinal algae for a friend and has to conquer his fears when he encounters a scary cave.

• Ug: Boy Genius of the Stone Age and his Search for Soft Trousers by Raymond Briggs (Red Fox). Living in the Stone Age means stone blankets, stone cold food, an even colder cave and, worst of all, hard stone trousers! So Ug devises some modifications to improve the quality of family life.

• Caveman Dave by Nick Sharratt (Walker Books). Part of the Read Me Beginners Series, an amusing story with very simple text.

• The Bear in the Cave by Michael Rosen and Adrian Reynolds (Bloomsbury). Bear leaves his cave home to explore city life. See also its follow-up, Bear Flies High.

• Limestone Cave (Habitats) by Wendy Davis (Children's Press). Information book about animals that live in caves.

• The Stone Age (Step into) by Charlotte Hurdman (Southwater). Information book about how Stone Age people lived.

• Who Were the First People? (Usborne Starting Point History) by Phil Roxbee Cox (EDC Publishing). Information book with internet links and simple text.

Marianne Sargent is a writer specialising in early years education and a former foundation stage teacher and primary and early years lecturer