Hay Bales in the Playground

We are always looking for new things to add to our playground. Early in October, Miss Marta had the idea to add bales of hay to switch it up for the fall. At first we piled the hay for climbing and gave the children the opportunity to explore it. 

 

The next week, I rearranged the hay to make little huts or crawl spaces. I added pumpkins, play dishes, and dolls. We decided to call it the pumpkin patch. 

The children immediately started using the covered spaces as houses.

 

 They took the dolls inside the "houses".

And relaxed on (comfy?) pumpkins.

They also spent time carrying and rolling the pumpkins. 

 This week, Miss Erin turned the area into a boat by rearranging the hay. She added a sail, fishing rods, and paper plate fish.

Sailboats

After reading Sail Away by Donald Crews, we made these simple sailboats.

For each sailboat we used:

- one paper plate

- one drinking straw

- one 9" by 6" piece of paper 

- a small lump of air dry clay

First, we poked a hole at each end of the piece of paper and pushed the straw through the holes to make the sail. 

 Then we put the lump of clay in the center of the plate and stuck the sail in it. 

 We didn't wait for the clay to dry because the sails were standing up pretty sturdily and because we were anxious to sail our boats. 

Our sensory table is too small for sailing boats this big so we brought in the wading pool that we use for water play in the summer. 

 I gave each child a straw and showed them how to blow through it to make wind so that the boats would sail. 

 We had lots of fun sailing our boats and even gave our little people a ride. 

Later, we put a plastic plate in the water and put all of the little people on it to see if it would sink. 

 It didn't sink so we added more toys to see how many it would hold...

...until it capsized.