Learning and Exploring Through Play: Light table

The Month of Love - February is here and it wouldn't be right without creating some heart set ups for Valentines Day. This is our 'Valentines Heart Light Box' but to be truthful - what child wouldn't enjoy this any day of the year?

We created our very own light box. It looks so effective and beautiful. You can choose to cover over the lights in the bottom of the box if you wish but I think it adds to the effect so havent done this as of yet.

For todays play set up we had:
- Tweezers
- Small heart containers
- Heart window gel cling ons
- Heart Gems in different colours and sizes
- Heart Bangles

Little N actually walked over to the play invitation says "WOW" - she does make me smile.
She really enjoyed collecting up the heart gems and collecting them in the heart shaped containers. She used the tweezers to help do this too.
It was pretty tricky to pick them up but she was really pleased with herself after she persevered and managed to do it.

She placed the two heart containers in front of her and independently began to sort the gems. She places the smaller hearts in one container and the larger red hearts in another.

She muttered away to herself as she was doing this too, identifying aloud which hearts were big and which were small.

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Follow Amy Louise's board Learning and Exploring Through Play on Pinterest.

Hi my name is Martina and I run Crawl2explore Daycare in West Sussex, England.

I am always finding ways to encourage children to use their natural curiosity in their play.

When I was asked to do a guest post sharing ideas on using a light box in a setting I thought of all the years of fun my children have had with our light box which I purchased from TTS educational supplies.

The children continue to love it and adopt it into their play based learning on a daily basis.

I provide a range of materials to explore at the light table and the children enjoy providing their ideas too. Our lightbox has been used over and over in role play, sensory fun, building and educational activities.

Here we were matching coloured pipe cleaners and magnetic discs. This was a great activity exploring cause and effect and also learning about magnets:

We used dry orange slices, cut out insects and laminated vines to create a spring collage. This is what I love about Light Table activities as you can link it to any theme, topic you are covering aswel as thinking about the children's interests :

Light boxes can act as another tunnel into imaginary play. Wooden blocks become temples and Magnatiles become spaceships:

A spaceship about to blast off into space:

We recently had a Doctors Role Play Area in our setting and we used the light box to learn about X-Rays and bones in our bodies. This really brought the role play area to life, the children really enjoyed examining the X-Ray pictures:

Sensory play is great fun with a light reflecting underneath. Here we explored water beads in a glass box with the light box. The children enjoyed watching the different colours mix and the reflection from the light. We added a marble run and the children used water bottles to make the water beads roll down the run:

Here we had a rainbow blocks on the light box and a see through sheet over them with shaving foam. The children enjoyed making patterns, shapes, matching numbers and just exploring mark making:

There are so many different types of light boxes available to buy so its always best to shop around and see which one suits your home or setting best.

You can drop by and see what else we have been up to on Facebook and get more ideas for making the most of your light box at Crawl2Explore.

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