In a spin
* Explore how water wheels turn when water is poured on to them. Is it possible to make the wheels turn faster or more slowly? How can the children stop the wheel from turning? Try pouring mixtures such as cornflour and water on to the wheels to see if they still turn. Experiment with sand wheels. Do they turn more easily when dry or wet sand is added?
* Run around outdoors to explore how toy windmills turn, and then try to make your own.
* Make spinners from circles of card with a pencil pushed through the centre. Colour them using the colours of the rainbow and watch what happens to the colours when the spinners are turned. Create a rainbow-coloured cardboard disc. Thread the disc through an elastic band, turn it round and round, holding the ends of the elastic, and then release the disc. Watch what happens to the colours as they spin.
* Play with toy spinning tops and talk about how they work.
* Fill a salad spinner with wet lettuce and turn it round in circles. What happens?
On a roll
* Ask the children to spin round and roll along the floor, or ideally, outdoors.
* Ask them to twist their bodies from the waist and turn parts of their body, such as their head and hands.
* Play your own version of the game 'Twister', trying to fit feet and hands into different circles drawn on the ground.
* Pretend to be leaves turning as they float gently to the ground.
* Sing 'Wind the bobbin up' and talk about the hand movements needed for the actions.
In a whirl
* Use cooking utensils, for example, to stir and whisk mixtures.
* Explore a variety of screw-top jars and bottles and try putting them back on the correct containers.
* Provide construction equipment containing cogs. Put a blob of playdough on each cog to make it easier to follow the movement. Do all the cogs turn the same way?
* Explore objects that wind up by turning keys. If possible watch the mechanisms inside. Can the children see the cogs turning?
* Try twisting a length of thick paper and a sponge. What happens when the objects are released?
* Look at pictures of helicopters and talk about how they work. Throw sycamore keys in the air and watch them spin to the earth.
* Share the rhyme 'Jack and Jill' and talk about how they managed to get water from the bottom of a well. Make a model well by standing two chairs back to back and suspending a broom handle between them. Create a 'turning'
handle from a kitchen roll tube by cutting two holes in the tube's centre and then sliding it on to the broom handle at right angles. Tie a piece of thin rope to the broom handle and attach the other end to a bucket. Turn the kitchen roll handle round to lower the bucket and wind it back up again.
A creative twist
* Twist paper strips around a pencil. Remove the pencil and use the curls to create 3D pictures.
* Cut spirals out of circles of card and suspend them as mobiles. Watch them twist and turn in an open window or above a warm heater.
* Show the children a musical box and turn the key to wind it up. Listen to the music 'Coppelia' by Delibes, and talk about how the clockwork toys came to life. Play the music and ask the children to work in pairs, with one child pretending to wind a toy up while the other pretends to move like a clockwork toy.
* Create acrobat toys by tying a piece of elastic between the backs of two chairs to form a loop. Slot a thick cardboard 'acrobat' between the elastic and turn it round and round until it is tight. Let go and see the acrobat turn over and over.
