Taking play and inside activities outside might seem like a challenge sometimes – but there are so many benefits of doing this. One of them is the transferof skills and concepts to a different setting, maybe using different media nd materials, that builds children’s cognitive development and supports their creativity.

One of the boys asked if we could do some sewing – so we got out the needles, wool and paper plates – and the sewing table was busy. We thought that to be fair to the children who have never done sewing before, we should have a run though with a very basic “sampler” first.

As we have had an ongoing debate all year about what is girls stuff and what is boys stuff, it was pleasing to have a boy request this and the boys be just as keen to have a go.

As you can see, plates provide a firm base for the sewing – they also offer some challenge for developing hand strength – at the start  only a couple of the girls had the hand strength required to punch holes in the plates – by the end of the week, the children who had several goes were much more able to handle that job.

Then we took the sewing outside –  they found leaves, chose beads and worked out what they were making….

… necklaces are always popular, but so are crowns and other decorations.

and the children started to look at leaves in a new way – they had to be the right sort for sewing – judgng the area needed for the needle to go through was important – the little ones had to be “big little” as Porscha said.