With Spring on the horizon your setting may be thinking about covering a Farm Topic. It's actually a GREAT time to cover the farm as lots of baby animals are arriving. With the topic on the cards you may also be looking for some great children's stories to accompany your set ups, or simply for more inspiration on activities you can do in your setting. Today we are sharing a beautiful Farm Tuff Tray linking to the delightful stories of Farmer Duck and Oliver's Vegetables and a rather impressive Role Play area.

I have worked with children for a long time and have observed many hours of play. There are so many children who spend a great deal of time playing with cars, trains, bikes - pretty much anything with wheels.
No matter what resources we put out some children are reluctant to move away from the toys they love playing with the most. Today we are looking at how we can bring other variations to Transport Play.

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: