Play Pieces: March

Spring is starting to appear, the weather has been mixed but it is getting warmer and lighter meaning we can get outside to play more often. Here's a photo round up of what's been happening over the last month.

 

We've sat on and spun on this wheely chair - a lot!

 

We made our own version of table tennis

Played tug of war

 

We've been obsessed with blue sweets and blue tongues

We used the Shop windows for target practice

Our love for tyres continued...

...we even came up with a throwing game using them



We enjoyed some beautiful football silhouette moments



And played at being a mechanic

We did some new promotional signage for the Shop of Possibilities

And looked quite official underneath some tarpaulin

We got some new shelves and displayed some interesting objects

 

And the staff got tied up again, but we're getting pretty used to that now...

 

Simple Things

Tarpaulin and rope are becoming essential ingredients in our Play Local and Shop of Possibilities play sessions. Super simple but they have so many possible uses. I had a great time watching all of this amazing stuff unfold before me, and it was particularly nice to see the staff really working as support around the edges of the play, they enabled certain things to happen which the kids might not have been able to do by themselves but they never led or directed the children into any specific activities.

It started simply by trying to attach a giant piece of tarpaulin to a tree.

The children then started to wave the tarpaulin, making it catch the wind and make lots of fun crashing noises which was more interesting than the original plan.

Sunny Saturday Play

We have a few play projects to show off today. Making the most of the sunshine, the children took to the outdoors to play together and come up with some fun things to do.

Wheels:

Tamzin brought along her roller skates and I particularly enjoyed watching this moment when Konniemae was pushing her around on the wheely chair even though Tamzin had her own wheels on her feet.

The roller skates did prove to be a bit of a hindrance though when it came to tidying up some escaped paper... Suddenly skating became a bit too difficult...

Tyres and Water

Some interesting explorations with water up on the blog today. This started with Basit filling up a tyre with soapy water and seeing what would happen if he rolled it along the pavement.

 

Rolling it carefully...

And then not so carefully...

By spilling and tipping the water across the pavement, Basit created an unusual environment in which other  play could happen. The water gave these other play activities a curious edge; for example a simple race becomes more interesting as the racers run through the giant puddle:

Then the remaining water becomes a source of interest for another child who spends time sweeping it into the cracks of the pavement.

Going Outside

Has anybody noticed that the weather is starting to get a bit better? As a result we've already been seeing more children coming to the Shop of Possibilities and more of them wanting to play outside. Here are some photos of a group of kids and a load of random materials they dragged outside and played around with throughout the session. They started off by  carefully choosing the materials they wanted to take outside, but once they were outside the group lost interest and it became more about individual children playing around with different combinations of objects intermittently throughout the afternoon.

Arinze's Corner

So two weeks ago we saw David take over a corner in the Shop of Possibilities, and since then Arinze has had a go at claiming the space with the same material but a totally different process. It's obviously impossible to tell what is going through a child's mind while they are playing but Arinze was certainly working through something in his head while playing amongst all the cardboard. The photos make it look like lots of fun (which I'm sure it was) but at some points he got pretty angry with the cardboard and was hitting it, kicking it and smashing it up. So if someone had come in at that point and had seen that isolated moment they would have wondered what had happened to make him so angry.

However there were also moments of calm.

And there were moments that were more structured, where sorting the cardboard was a priority.

We asked Arinze at the end of the session what he wanted to happen to the cardboard, and he asked "Can we just leave it there?" So we did. Then next session he carried on where he left off. This time hiding amongst it was the most popular activity.

The cardboard has now been tidied up and is back in the corner waiting for another child to discover it.

Playworker Stories: Tarpaulin and Rope

We have a team of playworkers who assist on the Play Local project, they all help to run sessions at the Shop of Possibilities and the offsite Play Local sessions. They all live locally, some on the estates we deliver play sessions on. Many of them are under 21 and for many it is also their first job. We felt it was about time that their voices are heard on the blog, and so we decided to introduce ‘Playworker Stories’, a series of blog posts written by the Playworkers about a session, or particular play moments that they have found interesting.
 
The first in this series is written by Jamielee who is nineteen years old and has worked on the Play Local project for around nine months.

On Saturday 22 February we went to Elmington estate. The children had some tarpaulin and rope to use so they could make something out of it. George, one of the children, tied the tarpaulin to the fence and around himself and balanced with it.

Some of the kids enjoyed putting the tarpaulin over the climbing frame to make a tent. Then Daniel turned the tent into a bath and a bed.

Car Tyre Games

We seem to be collecting old car tyres at the Shop of Possibilities lately and the children have been using them for all sorts of different games. The tyres have been covered in chalk and turned into large mark making objects. They were rolled and raced. They were climbed on, balanced on, jumped on and sat in. Here's some images which show some of the ways the children have been playing with them. It was a lot of fun to watch and I think the children had a good time too!

Making A Mascot

It all started when we got given a load of teddy bears from a parent who lives on Sceaux Gardens estate... There were also some old clothes in the bag and once Emily found these she decided she wanted to make a giant teddy mascot for the Shop of Possibilities. 

They made the body by stuffing a top and trousers with Eeyore's old stuffing:

And then found a good head for the mascot in the form of an old Winnie the Pooh teddy bear, and proceeded to remove the head with surgical accuracy...

 

They fixed the head onto the body...

Then the mascot was complete!

 

Meanwhile, other children caught on to what was happening, and joined in with the action...

   

With perhaps slightly more sinister intentions...