We are loving that it is spring time and we can play outside as much as possible, but sometimes we do need to play inside so it's nice to bring a little of that spring fun into the house. Today we brought some lovely things together to create our Spring Discovery Basket! When Ethan was small we had our first Heuristic Play Treasure Basket and have been playing with it ever since, so many of the bits from there were our starting point today.
I added a few springtime bits such as the metal bucket, wooden worm toy, windmill toy, wooden duck toy, pieces of flowery fabric and a wooden frog toy. The other objects were a variety of wooden and metal pieces that I thought Ivy would find intriguing and would work well with the other materials.
Ivy delved in straight away, picking things up and having a look at them. She plays in a very unique way, in that she likes to pick something up and walk around the house with it. So the first item that she liked was a string of wooden beads, which she held in her hand, put in her mouth and then put around her wrist and walked all around the kitchen with.
When she returned to the basket she then started picking up items and trying to combine them and use them together. There was a particular wooden egg and metal strainer that she was determined to use and did eventually manage to balance and lift up the two together. The pride on her face was fantastic and gave her the confidence to explore the other items further and put them together in different ways.
These types of treasure baskets are very popular in our house, Ivy can sit for ages playing with all of the different items as she goes through them one by one. Even Ethan still finds them interesting, often coming to sit with Ivy for a little while and play with her. He plays in a more structured way now, making up little scenarios and stories by using the different props. It's lovely to watch them playing side by side.
Linked up to Tot School Gathering Place :)
