Simple exercises
Make exercising exciting by encouraging the children to use their imaginations. As they take part in the activities, emphasise the words 'bend' and 'stretch' by elongating the sounds as you say them. Talk about the function of muscles and how exercise keeps you healthy.
* Talk about waking up in the morning. Invite the children to pretend to be asleep by lying down with their bodies curled up. Then suggest that they gradually wake up with a long yawn, stretching their arms and legs.
* Show the children a Jack-in-the-box and talk about how the toy works.
Invite the children to mimic the movements. Use a drum beat to indicate the moment when the lid is opened.
* Choose imaginary situations involving stretching, for example, Jack's beanstalk stretching up to the giant's castle or a sunflower growing from a seed, and encourage the children to act the different sequences.
* Create an imaginary land using large apparatus and invite the children to explore it. Talk to them about their movements, for example, 'I could see you were all bending down to crawl into the cave.'
* Build some towers with bricks. Draw the children's attention to their movements as they build up the towers a brick at a time. When complete, encourage the children to pretend to be towers. Ask the children to bend down and then gradually stretch up with every beat of a drum until they are tall towers.
* Organise races. For example, set out a bucket and row of, for example, small toys or potatoes for each child. Who will be the first to put all the objects in the bucket?
* Watch a caterpillar walking. How does it move? Try to imitate the movement by going down on all fours, stretching out arms and legs, and bending the body between each step.
Time to play
Toys can provide exciting opportunities to explore bending and stretching.
* Blow up balloons while the children watch. Make comparisons before and after inflating them and talk about how rubber stretches. Blow up balloons of different shapes and sizes. Try making different animals by bending and joining balloons together. (Emphasise that children should not play with balloons before they are inflated and should not try blowing them up themselves.)
* Invite the children to take turns to ride a space hopper. Talk about how it is like a giant balloon, bending and stretching to let them bounce across the floor.
* Visit a park and look at how springs are used in some rides, for example, individual animal rockers. Talk about how springs work by stretching and then returning to their original shape. Observe a 'slinky' toy moving down some steps and explain how it is a big spring. Show the children a pogo stick and talk about how it works. Look at the springs on a trampoline and explain how they help the children to jump higher. Play with the Jack-in-the box and try making paper springs from zigzags of card to make a tiny version.
* Provide the children with balls attached to bats with elastic. Can the children explain how they work based on earlier experiences of materials that stretch? Suggest that they make their own toys from balls of scrunched-up paper taped to elastic.
* Invite the children to make some play dough by adding water to self-raising flour until it forms a stretchy mixture. Have fun exploring the stretching properties of the dough, making worms and ropes and watching as they shrink.
Material investigations
Provide opportunities for children to explore the flexible and rigid properties of materials.
* Explore sheets of paper, thick card and wood of the same size. Ask the children to try to bend them. Which material is easiest to bend? Does the thickness of the material affect the children's ability to bend it? Try bending other materials such as cork or vinyl floor tiles.
* Look at short lengths of plastic covered wire and dowelling (cover the ends with tape for safety). Which of the materials will bend? Bend the wire into different shapes, and talk about how it retains the new shape.
* Encourage the children to explore lengths of elastic and elastic bands under close supervision. Talk about how it can be stretched and then returned to its former length. (Provide goggles, and emphasise to the children the danger of stretching the elastic too far and then letting go.) Try bending and squashing sponges and watch as they return to their original shape.
