Sandpits can be incredibly inspiring spaces for imaginative pretend play.
We like to mix and match E’s toys and natural treasures we find, to fashion rich learning spaces such as this one. E had been gifted a tube of insects and animals for his birthday, he has people from another toy set, we have PVC pipe offcuts and we were able to collect some rocks, pinecones and tree branches.
We worked together to create a landscape inspired by the creek (promoting awareness and respect for natural environments and animals). We made a rock river bed, a pond with a bowl, a sandcastle hill and we used pinecones as trees. We also used our branches as trees. We wanted it to be a beautiful, happy day, so we brought a rainbow with us (we found a real rainbow after it rained today).
E decided his lizard would be his main character, and he manoeuvered him throughout the space, favouring the pond. He directed my inclusion in his play, selected me a snake as my character and instructed the games and story as we played (role play, imagination, sharing, decision making, story telling, applying pre-existing knowledge to new experience).
We added some water to our rock river bed and the frogs gathered for a swim. We realised if we had three more frogs, we could sing Five Little Speckle Frogs, so E went searching in his tub of animals (rational counting – numeracy, music, story telling).
We sang and acted out the song with five little frogs, promoting numeracy (counting each frog – rational counting) and literacy down at the creek.
Throughout our play our sandcastle hill eroded into the creek. We dug it back out and E decided the creek needed some modifications. We used our hands and shovel to dig out the sand and created channels, tunnels, twists and turns and made the creek circle around our lizard’s hill (home). We decided to coat the tunnels in sand to make them look more natural. E loves creating and recreating and a lot of his play involves taking things apart and making them into something new. He was able to have fun doing this in our story, as our family of lizards (he designated a mummy, daddy and baby lizard) adventured around the creek. Did you know lizards like swimming? According to E, they do.
Next time you’re playing in the sandpit, think creatively about the resources you have and can easily source to enrich your digging and building sensory play with a story or ‘theme’.
Five little Speckle Frogs
Five little Speckle Frogs, sat on a Speckle log, eating the most delicious grubs YUM YUM.
One jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool, now there are (count them) four Speckle frogs.
Repeat