About Me

About me

My name is Nik and I am Mum to two small boys called Sam and Oliver and partner to the long suffering Ali and we are based in Devon, England.

My blog is about my journey though life, the highs, the lows and all the fun and messy bits in-between.

It is a personal blog that is written by me and only features my opinions. I do work on behalf of businesses and companies, writing posts and reviews but I will only give you my honest thoughts, if I love it or hate it I will tell you.

If you would like to get in touch with me or my mini monsters please contact me at
themummymonster1@gmail.com





Tuesday 16 July 2019

Mrs Mactivity Activity Sheets

Review of Mrs Mactivity Activity Sheets.

Recently I saw a request for a blogger to undertake a review of the Mrs Mactivity Early Years tuff spot tray "provocations" taken from the Mrs Mactivity website: https://www.mrsmactivity.co.uk/ in return for a membership to the website.

The Mrs Mactivity website is the home of exciting, affordable, hands on, activity based printable learning resources that kids and teachers love! So, I jumped at the chance to use my knowledge as an Early Years Adviser and as a Mum!

I took ages to decide which provaction plan to try with Bob, but I know he has been badgering me for some playdough recently so we decided to give that one ago. I printed off the plan and read the set up instructions. Now I have been working in Early Years for many years but I always find it useful to see or read other peoples ideas as you can always learn something new.

In the set up instructions it reminds you that that how you set up an activity is important as it is an invitation to come and play, it also states that "children should lead the learning, with the adults there to support and scaffold play and development opportunities"

This is something I really had to remember as I am always keen to jump in and lead the play rather than allow Bob to explore and make it his own.




 
In the supplies list of the plan it gave me some ideas of things to put in the bowls for Bob to choose from. Now this can take some planning, but why not extend the activity and go for a woodland walk or a ramble along the beach to look at different things to use.

Bob was really involved in collecting the items and he helped me make the playdough* see the recipe I use at the bottom of the post.

The main item on the list was the builder tray, now I already own one of these and I have to say they are fab. The Daddy Monster thought I was nuts when I first ordered it but we have now used it so much that he completely understands the benefits of it now. Phew! If you don't have one, don't panic, a clean table top is just as good.



Bob and I decided to use lots of natural materials as well as some marbles, that he had found and had been desperate to use.

I wasn't sure how long this was going to hold Bobs attention as it can be quite tricky to concentrate when you are three years old but we were set up and ready to go. Luckily the weather was beautiful so we were running the activity outside.















We started by just playing with playdough, we had a ball each and I used some of the words that were suggested on the plan such as "pinch, squeeze, push, pull, squash, twist, flatten and stretch". Bob was keen to copy some of actions and even added some of his own for me to copy such as "poke"


 

 Bob then naturally moved onto adding some of the marbles, the pine cone and some daisies to the mix and made me a birthday cake, which he sang "Happy Birthday" as he proudly gave it to me.

I started to roll out my dough ball using the palm of my hand, I then rolled a pine cone across the dough. We talked about the pattern it made and we decided it looked like a hedgehog. Bob was keen to have ago too and took my resources and had a go himself.



We talked about what other animals we could make, his results are below:





















Look at his face, he was chuffed as punch that he had made a butterfly on his own :) He was able to show me the head, the body and the wings.

He also made a fab snail but unfortunately I had videoed it and the video now wont load :(

To make the snail it involved me showing Bob how to roll the playdough into a long line and making it look like a sausage according to Bob.

His play developed during the session and he ended up making lots of different things.



 
Check out Bob's speech in the video link above during the session, I had shown him how to cut the playdough with a shell and he was repeating the words and the actions together.
 
The play naturally came to an end but I left it out in case Bob came back to it later, however the session had lasted nearly 1.5 hours!! We did stop for a snack and drink half way through but he wanted to return to it afterwards.  
 
However, what really surprised me, was when Sam came home and Bob started to show him all the things we had been doing. I watched as Bob showed him some  of the techniques and he even used some the words he had learnt. Proud Mummy moment :)
 
 
 
 
 
Overall, my boys loved this activity and it reminded me that actually it can be the simplest activities that they love the best.
 
Over the Summer, I plan on using the Mrs Mactivity website to help with the Summer Learning loss which Sam can experience if we don't do something educationally based during the long holiday. However, would he know that this session had an educational background?  absolutely not, which is why it is so perfect :)
 
For any early years settings thinking of using the website, all the activities are already linked to the Early Learning Goals and Early Years Outcomes for you, taking all the hard work out of the planning  - perfect!!
 
The website can be accessed at https://www.mrsmactivity.co.uk and is currently only £9.97 for the year!!!!
 
I believe this is a real must for all Parents and Early Years Educators.
 
**In return for this honest review I was gifted a year's membership to the Mrs Mactivity website. All the thoughts and opinions are completely my own.**


 *Playdough Recipe










1 comment:

  1. I so wish that tuff spots had been around when my boys were small, they look so fun and a great way to contain the mess! Stevie x

    ReplyDelete

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