Think ahead to make the most effective use of one of the most popular play areas in any setting, as Jane Drake considers how practitioners can carry out planning for the Foundation Stage
Long-term planning
In drawing up a long-term plan for the sand area, practitioners can ensure that children access a rich curriculum on a daily basis. When areas of provision are permanently available, and basic resources constant, children will revisit over a period of time to develop their skills and ideas.
Possible learning experiences
The sand area is usually popular and, with the correct resources, will offer learning opportunities across the curriculum, particularly in areas of mathematical development and knowledge and understanding of the world (exploration and investigation).
It is important to recognise that wet and dry sand have different properties and will lead to different learning experiences. For example, children can explore shape using wet sand, and pouring and filling using dry sand.
In the sand area, children should have the opportunity to:
- Handle and explore sand using appropriate senses.
- Describe properties of sand.
- Experiment with sand and water, make simple predictions and talk about the changes that take place.
- Select appropriate tools and equipment and use with control.
- Fill and empty containers to learn about capacity and volume.
- Talk about shape using simple mathematical language of shape and size.
- Use numbers in their play and count reliably.
- Explore mark-making in wet and dry sand using tools and fingers.
- Imprint in wet sand.
- Engage in imaginative and role-play, such as creating a 'moonscape'.
Organisation
- Ideally, make available both wet and dry sand. If space is limited, offer wet and dry sand on a rotational basis and involve children in wetting the dry sand during the changeover.
- Set up a system for storing equipment. Boxes should be strong and clearly labelled.
- Provide sand play outdoors, if possible in a permanent, large-scale sand pit. Cover the outdoor trays and pits when not in use to protect the sand, particularly from cats.
- Provide sand play indoors in an area with appropriate flooring - dry, loose sand can be slippery and should be swept up regularly. Encourage the children to sweep up sand after a spillage.
- Ensure that there is always enough sand in trays to avoid frustration.
- Store equipment on open-shelved units with templates on the equipment stuck to the shelves. Otherwise, present the equipment on a tabletop or large tray. Hang tools and equipment on hooks with templates of the objects underneath. Such a system of organisation enables the children to help tidy up and supports their mathematical learning about shape, space and measure.
- Plan for adults to spend time engaging with children in the sand area.
Resources
It may not be practical or appropriate to offer the full range of equipment listed below. Decide how to rotate or add resources to support a focus.
Essential equipment includes:
- Large tray on a stand
- Smaller shallow trays
- Sweeping brush, dustpan and brush
- Buckets, jugs, moulds and containers of different shapes and sizes
- Spades, scoops, rakes
- Tea strainers, colander
- Sand wheel
- Plastic plates, bowls, cups, cutlery
- Baking equipment
- Whisks, fish slices, range of spoons
- Gardening equipment such as plant pots, sieve and watering can
- Small-world equipment
- Sand paper of different grades
- Sand timers
- Natural objects, such as fir cones and shells, and everyday objects, such as combs and plastic bottle lids
- Numbered flags
- Photographs, posters, sto
Adult role
- Support children in matching equipment to templates.
- Teach safety routines such as sweeping up sand from the floor.
- Ask challenging questions such as 'What do you think will happen if we pour water into the dry sand?' 'What has happened to the wet sand over the holiday?
How can we make it wet again?' 'How many cupfuls of sand do you think it will take to fill the bucket?'
- Model the use of key vocabulary such as 'full', 'empty', 'more', 'less', 'wet' and 'dry'.
Medium-term planning
Planning for children's learning at the 'medium term' stage (usually the next two to six weeks) involves identifying a bank of focus activities that can feed into weekly planning and outlining enhancements to areas.
Activities and experiences should take place within the basic provision and may be planned around a topic or predictable interest. Remember that although medium-term planning can provide a useful support to staff, there should be a healthy balance between pre-planned activities and the experiences that are planned in response to children's immediate interests.
Examples of medium-term planning for the sand area are:
Holidays
Additional resources
Large plastic sheet covered in sand, child-size 'deck' chairs, spades, buckets, sun hats, airbed, picnic hamper, plastic ice cream cones, ice cream scoops, cardboard 'flakes' (in wet sand tray).
Activities
'Beach' play, talking about holidays and beaches, ordering and making 'ice creams' using wet sand.
Buildings
Additional resources
Old wooden blocks, jugs, water, hard hats, trowels, builders' merchants catalogues, architects plans, clipboards, paper, pencils, photographs of brick walls and buildings.
Activities
Creating towns using blocks to represent buildings, talking about brick patterns, piling up bricks into towers, mixing 'cement' using sand and water, taking on the role of builder, building walls using the wooden blocks and 'cement', ordering materials from catalogues, drawing up plans and designing buildings.
Short-term planning
Short-term plans focus on what will be happening in the setting over the next few days. Through observation, practitioners can identify children's learning interests and needs and respond to these by planning for their next steps. The following case study shows how practitioners responded to a child's interest.
Case study: Jodie
Observation
While playing outdoors Jodie noticed how wet some soil was from a recent downpour. She started to stir the soil and water, squeeze them together and add stones and twigs. Later during the session, she commented to a staff member that there was, however, 'no mud' under the tree.
Staff response
Staff had often observed Jodie's interest in mixing materials and decided to plan an adult-supported focus in the sand area to enable her (and other interested children) to pursue this interest. They also planned to take Jodie outside in the next downpour to show her how the area under the tree was sheltered from the rain and so the soil had not turned to 'mud'.
Key early learning goals
- To investigate objects and materials by using their senses.
- To look closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change.
Resources
Sand, compost, gravel, pebbles, stones, watering can, jug, water, plastic trays or bowls, spoons, transparent plastic cylinders or bottles.
Activity content
- Introduce the materials to the children and encourage them to explore them with their hands.
- Talk with the children about similarities and differences in texture and colour of the materials.
- Ask a child to put some sand into a bowl and to slowly add water and mix it with their hands or a spoon. Ask the children to predict what will happen and to comment on their observations.
- Encourage children to experiment with different combinations of materials and discuss any changes.
- Leave a mixture of sand and water in a transparent container overnight and talk about the separation of the two the next day. Try this with other mixtures.
- Allow children to return to their investigations for as long they are interested.
