Enabling Environments: Let's explore ... Wet and dry

A theme of 'wet and dry' gives children the opportunity to range across the whole learning environment, exploring, investigating and solving problems during their play. It is the support and guidance that adults offer that turns these experiences and reflections into learning opportunities.

Young children are constantly learning about their world through trying things out, and as their world grows bigger through their many experiences, especially if the experiences make sense to the learner, then a deeper understanding develops.

Children need time and space to discuss their ideas and to plan, explore, solve problems and question. They need opportunities to direct the action and the conversation.

Early years practitioners should emphasise discovery and experimentation and encourage the children to explore how water changes the look and feel of things. Discuss with them the differences in colour and texture between wet and dry materials. Go outside and talk about how rain feels when it falls on your hands and face.

Water play

Water is an important part of early years provision, both indoors and outside. Water is used for so many things and by drawing children's attention to the different ways we use water, children begin to understand that we need water every day for drinking, for washing dishes, clothes and ourselves, for cooking and for growing our food.

Practitioners will need to provide opportunities for children to use water to cook things, such as boiled eggs and vegetables; to water plants with hoses, watering cans and sprayers; and to play with water play in ways they can explore how it pours and flows.

For example, practise pouring by using teapots, jugs and cups full of coloured water for pretend tea parties. Mark the water levels on a glass before and after the children suck it through a straw to draw their attention to where the water started and how they lowered the water level by drinking.

Science workshop

Encourage the children to mix different materials with water, such as soap flakes, salt, flour and sugar. Discuss what happens when they add water to different substances.

Create a stimulating 'hands-on' workshop environment that offers opportunities to explore and investigate mixing water with a range of dry ingredients.

Provide a selection of the following items:

- different-sized containers of water

- a collection of plastic mixing bowls

- measuring cups and spoons

- magnifying glass

- appropriate clothing, photographs, pictures, signs and an interactive work display will provide information and make a workshop feel more authentic.

Enrich the workshop by adding:

- lab coats made from cut-down white shirts and protective goggles

- clipbboards and pens, sticky notes, index cards, file folders.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Measuring and estimating
Noticing change
Asking questions about why things happen
Using language of measurement
Using talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking
Responding in a variety of ways to what they observe

ADULT ROLE

- Encourage the children to discuss their observations as they play, clarify the children's ideas and provide feedback.

- Introduce new vocabulary, such as dissolve, disappear and melt.

- Make sure that the children are actively involved in their experiments, and not just observers.

- Ask questions that extend children's thinking, such as 'I wonder what will happen when you put sugar in water?'

- Consider using a medicine dropper to slowly moisten the materials.

- Introduce warm water and jelly crystals (from a vegetarian food shop).

- Suggest measuring different amounts of cold water to juice.

- Provide labels show 'before' and 'after' the water was added.

- Use water as glue. Let children wet their finger and put it in a bowl of lentils or tissue paper scraps and see how much they can pick up.

Creative area

- Sing with the children the nursery rhyme 'Incey Wincey Spider' and use finger play to illustrate the actions in the rhyme.

- Provide pieces of plastic guttering and drain pipes.

- Resource the area with thick black pipe cleaners to make spiders, and use elastic to attach to the spiders so they can bounce.

- Enrich the workshop with factual books about spiders and discuss how many legs spiders have.

- Dramatise the song with musical instruments that make rain sounds. Decide what sounds like 'sun music'.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Singing simple songs from memory
Exploring the different sounds of instruments
Saying and using number names in order
Using everyday language related to time
Working as part of a group taking turns

ADULT ROLE

- Observe the children, noting significant achievements.

- Support them as they construct a spider and show how to find illustrations from factual books on spiders.

- Emphasise the difference between sun and rain, and wet and dry.

- Draw children's attention to weather on a sunny or rainy day and keep a diary of wet and dry days for a week, comparing the difference between each number of days. Decide what symbols will indicate dry or sunny in the diary.

Sand Area

Sand is an important part of early years provision. All children are fascinated by feeling dry sand trickling through their fingers and piling it up into small steep-sided mountains. And no child can resist using damp sand to fill and empty endless buckets or using their fingers to draw patterns in the sand.

Sand play helps children develop many skills. Comparing wet and dry sand will give them the opportunity to explore the changes in sand when water is added. Children will discover how sand acts differently when it is dry and how you can pour it but can't build with it.

Resource the area with:

- a wet sand tray and a dry sand tray

- a collection of different-sized spades, buckets and sieves

- moulds (for jellies, baking, beach play, etc) in a variety of shapes

- plastic biscuit cutters

- colanders, funnels, rakes and strainers

- small-world characters such as dinosaurs

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Beginning to use the vocabulary involved in shape and pattern in
practical activities
Constructing with a purpose in mind
Extending vocabulary, exploring the meanings of new words
Using tools and materials for particular purposes
Drawing lines and circles using gross motor movements

ADULT ROLE

- Support the children as they explore the resources and model the use of different building tools.

- Ask open-ended questions that encourage the use of descriptive language.

- Bury dinosaurs and other small-world characters in the sand and prompt children to sieve them out.

- Discuss the different characteristics of wet and dry sand.

- Take outside a sloppy sand mix (made by adding lots of water) and use large paintbrushes for pattern and mark-making.

- Substitute dry sand for other dry materials that act a bit like fluids, such as wood shavings, polystyrene squiggles, sequins and paper circles from a paper punch.

Outdoor area

- In a section of the outdoor area, collect together a quantity of smooth pebbles. The ones sold in bags from garden centres are very good for the purpose.

- Provide watering cans, jugs and squirters.

- Look and hold pebbles, pour water over some of them and discuss the difference between the wet pebbles and dry ones.

- Encourage the children to handle the pebbles and count and arrange them in patterns or lines.

- Extend the play by offering different sizes, shapes and colours of pebbles.

- Provide a digital camera for the children to take photographs of the pebbles before and after watering.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Looking closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change
Talking about, recognising and recreating simple patterns
Using language such as 'more' and 'less' to compare two collections
Using language for an increasing range of purposes

ADULT ROLE

- Encourage the children to describe the pebbles. Use words like shiny, glisten, colour, light, dark.

- Decide together whether there are more or fewer wet than dry pebbles.

- Provide paints, paper and brushes and get the children to colour-mix paint to make the different shades of wet and dry pebbles and paint a record of what happened when they watered the pebbles.

Outdoor water play

Offering outdoor water play gives opportunities for investigations in a dimension that is much larger than with water contained in a water tray, with the possibility of free-flowing water. To create a wet area you just need access to a hose and hard standing surface.

Resource the area with buckets, brooms and watering cans and provide waterproof trousers, wellies and umbrellas.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Displaying high levels of involvement in activity
Interacting with others while negotiating plans
Investigating objects and materials
Using mathematical ideas to solve practical problems
Putting a sequence of movements together

ADULT ROLE

- Provide a shallow tray of water for children to walk through to make trails of wet footprints on dry ground.

- Make puddles with the hose or watering can for stamping through in welly boots.

- Lay down large plastic shapes or boxes, sprinkle water over them with a watering can, remove the shapes and look at the dry patterns.

- Extend the play by introducing large paint brushes and buckets, paint rollers and trays for children to 'paint' walls and floors with.

- Introduce earth and mix with water to make mud and mud pies.

- Discuss the possibilities of moving water to another area or watering plants and decide the most suitable containers to use.

- Stand under umbrellas and use the hose to create rain. Let everyone do a rain dance.

Carole Skinner, Fran Mosley and Sheila Ebbutt work for maths specialist company BEAM. For information visit www.beam.co.uk RESOURCE BOX

- Transporters such as wheelbarrows and carts

- Plastic guttering and pipes

- Water trays and large containers

- Paddling pool

- Large plastic gardening tubs to use as impromptu indoor sand containers

- Sieves, trowels, spades and buckets

- Watering cans, hose, squirters, spray bottles and sponges

- Different-sized plastic bottles and jars

- Ladles, spoons and scoops

EXPLORING CHILDREN'S INTERESTS

Tuning in

Making time to talk to parents and carers is an important way of finding out about children's current interests and about what matters to them. Such information helps practitioners to provide a curriculum that is both relevant and meaningful.

Having an existing interest in a particular theme means that children approach it with enthusiasm and expertise, giving them confidence and increased motivation to engage in the activities provided. Children can use this expertise best in carefully planned, open-ended learning opportunities without prescribed, uniform outcomes.

Enhancing provision

Any significant interest that a child or children may have should be explored by enhancing a setting's continuous provision - that is, by adding theme-based resources to the areas of provision that are available daily to children. These should comprise:

- role play
- small-world play
- construction play
- sand and water
- malleable materials
- creative workshop area
- graphics area
- book area.

By taking this approach, children can choose to engage with the theme, or pursue their own interests and learning independently. Adults need to recognise that children require a suitable length of time to explore any interests in depth and to develop their own ideas.

ADULT ROLE

If children's interests are to be used to create the best possible learning opportunities, the adult role is crucial.

Adults need to be able to:

- enhance continuous provision to reflect the interests of children

- use enhancements to plan meaningful learning opportunities across all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

- know when to intervene in children's play - and when to stand back

- recognise that children need a suitable length of time to explore areas of provision to develop their own ideas

- model skills, language and behaviours

- recognise how observation, assessment and reflection on children's play can enhance adults' understanding of what young children know, and realise how these should inform their future planning.

Areas of learning
Personal, social and emotional development
Communication, language and literacy
Problem-solving, reasoning and numeracy
Knowledge and understanding of the world
Physical development
Creative development

BOOK BOX

Maisy Big, Maisy Small by Lucy Cousins (Walker Books) A book of opposites, including the common ones (hot/cold, wet/dry, in/out) and some of the novel (fluffy/spiky, squiggly/straight).

The Mud Monster by Rosemary Billam and Martin Remphry (Franklin Watts) Greg is running in the Fun Run ... but it's very muddy on the way!

Water Boy by Ros Asquith (Templar Publishing) This book shows us the world through the eyes of a young adventurer. One moment he's a 'water boy' at the seaside, the next he's a 'farm boy' playing with the animals. Ian Andrew's beautiful illustrations capture the moments of play and exploration we share with the child in this evocative tale of long summer days and adventure.

Fix-it Duck (Duck in the Truck) by Jez Alborough (Picture Lions) Duck decides that not only can he fix his own leaking roof, but that his friends could also benefit from his DIY expertise. By the end of the story, his hapless friends are left requiring even more repair work than they did in the first place! And what did cause Duck's leaking roof? Could it be that he forgot to turn off his bath tap?

Mr Gumpy's Outing by John Burningham (Red Fox) One day, Mr Gumpy decides to take a trip along the river in his boat, but the children, the rabbit, the cat, the pig and a whole host of friends decide to join him. Everyone's having a lovely time until the animals start kicking, bleating and kicking, and the boat starts to rock.

Contrary Mary by Anita Jeram (Walker Books) When Mary gets up, she is feeling contrary. She puts her cap on back to front and her shoes on the wrong feet. And that's just the start of a very contrary day!

Mister Magnolia by Quentin Blake (Red Fox) Mister Magnolia has only one boot. He has an old trumpet, two sisters, a pond, green parakeets; he's a juggler, a general, the owner of a dinosaur, but only one boot, until a wonderful parcel arrives.

Splosh! by Mick Inkpen (Hodder Children's Books) Hedgehog and rabbits join favourite character Kipper for some rainy day fun in an upside-down umbrella.

Grandma's Beach by Rosalind Bradshaw (Bloomsbury Books) Emily and her mum are going to the beach. Until, that is, Emily's mum gets a phone call and she has to go to the office unexpectedly, so Emily has to visit her grandmother instead. Emily is not happy. But Grandma is not put off by her sulky granddaughter and decides to cheer her up by creating a special beach in her back garden.