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Corn flour Exploration
In the Fantail room the tamariki enjoy engaging in a range of sensory and messy play activities. Today we experimented with corn flour, exploring the way it felt in our hands and how we could use it to fill the back of trucks which made its way over to build mountains.
The tamariki enjoyed the opportunity to both feel this different tactile experience as well as explore how to fill the trucks and examine the tracks that were left behind as it drove around. In the corn flour we also had multiple stems of rosemary from out garden, this gave the tamariki a new level to this play. Exploring how the leaves were pointy and the stem was rough, they were able to experiment with the mixture of these sensations along with the corn flour. Adding natural herbs such as this to our play also means the tamariki are able to use their sense of smell to the sensory play activity.
As the tamariki explored the leaves on the rosemary stems they were enhancing their fine motor skills by using pincer group as they attempted to indivually pull each leaf off the stem. Setting up group activities with multiple ways to paly such as this helps the tamariki to learn to work alongside each other and take turns with he different resources.
We were able to enhance this learning opportunity by learning aloud, questioning and discussing what is going on in the moment, helping to enhance vocabulary and speech awareness.