A project focusing on the familiar and readily available resource of cutlery provides opportunities for developing children's understanding of the properties of materials and promoting their mathematical problem-solving skills.
In order for children to gain maximum benefit from this project, it is important to ensure that there are additional indoor and outdoor opportunities for child-initiated investigations.
Approach
The Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (page 11) emphasises the importance of providing children with a balance of adult-led and child-initiated learning opportunities. This project:
* identifies adult-led activities, to introduce or develop children's understanding of the topic through stimulating, meaningful experiences which offer challenge
* suggests ways to enhance areas of core provision, to consolidate children's learning about the theme. It is the practitioners' role to make daily observations of children's learning which inform individual child profiles and future planning. Children should be encouraged to use the resources to support their own learning. This means that the possible learning outcomes will be wide-ranging and varied
* advocates that settings should be organised and resourced using a 'workshop' approach so that children can access resources autonomously and independently.
Adult-led activity
Is there a place for me?
Develop children's counting and matching skills by setting places for a role-play meal together.
Key learning intentions
To use developing mathematical ideas and methods to solve practical problems
To handle tools, objects, construction and malleable materials safely and with increasing control
To express and communicate their ideas, thoughts and feelings by using a widening range of materials, suitable tools, imaginative and role play
Adult:child ratio 1:4
Resources
four laminated place mats depicting a knife, fork and spoon ,four sets of plastic cutlery, each set consisting of a knife, fork and spoon in a matching colour ,plastic cutlery drawer
Preparation
Create four place mats displaying sets of cutlery in four different colours from rectangles of thin white card. To make them, draw round the actual cutlery on coloured paper, cut out the shapes and stick them on the mat to create a place setting. Try to match the colour of the paper as closely as possible to the real item. Laminate the mats to make them more durable. Set the mats out on a table in the home corner and mix the cutlery up in a plastic cutlery drawer.
Activity content
* Invite the children into the home corner and show them the place mats you have created. Explain that you were going to set the table, but when you looked in the cutlery drawer it was all mixed up, and you want their help with sorting out the cutlery and matching it to the mat of the same colour.
* Choose one of the mats and ask the children what colour cutlery they will need and how many of each item. Have one child complete the setting.
* Repeat this with the remaining three children until all of the places are set. Ask some of the suggested questions involving counting, adding and taking away.
* Invite the children to enjoy a role-play meal while you serve them with their requests for pretend food.
Extended learning
Key vocabulary
Cutlery, knife, fork, spoon, set, mat, place, one more, one less, altogether, match, plus colours of place mats
Questions to ask
* How many place mats are there? How many children can sit down for a meal?
* I have three forks in my hand. How many more will I need so that you all have one?
* Two friends would like to join you for a meal. How many more places will you need to set? How many places will you have altogether?
* I have two spoons on the table and two in the drawer. How many do I have altogether?
Extension ideas
* Explore specialised feeding sets for babies and toddlers and talk about how and why the cutlery is different.
* Invite parents and staff to lend examples of camping cutlery (no sharp knives). What is different about it? Why is folding cutlery useful? Enjoy a role-play camping meal.
* Have ready a wide range of cutlery and then read some menus together and decide upon appropriate cutlery for each course, for example, soup spoons, fish knives, cheese knives, dessert forks and spoons. Discuss how these items differ and why.
Child-initiated learning
Malleable materials
Additional resources and adult support
* Provide children with different coloured playdough and plastic plates, along with the laminated placemats and plastic cutlery.
* Leave the children to play freely, returning occasionally in role to requesta meal.
* Provide paper, card, pictures of foods and mark-making materials for any children who may want to create menus for the foods they are making.
Play possibilities
* Creating food for role-play meals
* Matching cutlery to place settings by colour, size and shape
* Using additional resources to follow their own interests, for example, creating patterns in the playdough with the cutlery
* Using mark-making materials to write menus
Possible learning outcomes
Selects and uses activities and resources independently
Uses writing as a means of recording and communicating
Matches some shapes by recognising similarities and orientation
Shows curiosity, observing and manipulating objects Manipulating materials to achieve a planned effect
Child-initiated learning
Home corner role play
Additional resources and adult support
* Set up a table in the home area with the four place mats. Display the cutlery in a drawer with four compartments to encourage children to sort and match individual items.
* Provide a range of crockery, cooking utensils, empty food packets and some real and/or toy foods.
* Seat some dolls at the table.
* Leave the children to play freely, visiting in role to share a meal occasionally and encourage appropriate use of mathematical language.
Play possibilities
* Using available resources to set up imaginary meals
* Cooking imaginary meals
* Serving and feeding the dolls
* Matching cutlery to outlines on place mats by colour, size and shape
* Sorting cutlery into compartments in the tray and discussing their function
* Developing their own play ideas, for example, packing up the cutlery to take on an imaginary picnic
Possible learning outcomes
Begins to use talk in imaginary situations
Sorts objects by one function
Engages in imaginative and role play based on their own first-hand experience
Adult-led activity
Just a spoonful of sugar!
Discover more about the properties of materials by exploring a range of different spoons.
Key learning intentions
To be confident to try new activities, initiate ideas and speak in a familiar group
To extend their vocabulary, exploring the meanings and sounds of new words To investigate objects and materials by using all their senses as appropriate
Adult:child ratio 1:6
Resources
Spoons of different sizes made from materials such as wood, plastic, metal and ceramics ,range of containers large enough to hold the spoons
Activity content
* Spread the spoons on the floor and invite the children to explore them.
* Talk about the size, shape and colour of the spoons and what they are made of.
* Encourage children to sort the spoons by colour and by what they are made of.
* Make comparisons between different properties, for example, contrast a dull and a shiny spoon. Are all shiny spoons made of the same material? Contrast a spoon that is cold and smooth to the touch with one that feels warmer.
* Talk about what the spoons are used for. Contrast, for example, a wooden spoon with a teaspoon and talk about how function determines the size.
* Find a really shiny spoon and use it as a mirror. What do the children's reflections look like? Can they see a reflection in all of the spoons?
Extended learning
Key vocabulary
Spoon, teaspoon, dessert spoon, tablespoon, wood, plastic, ceramic, metal, dull, shiny, reflection, opaque, cold, warm, rough, smooth, big, small Questions to ask
* Can you find a spoon that is shiny?
* Which is the biggest spoon? What do you think it is used for?
* Can you find a metal spoon? How can you tell it is metal?
* How does a metal spoon feel? Does it feel the same as a wooden spoon? How is it different?
Extension ideas
* Put the wooden, plastic and metal spoons into a water tray to encourage investigation into floating and sinking and capacity.
* Eat with Chinese ceramic spoons and chopsticks as a cultural alternative to steel knives, forks and spoons.
* Look at examples of cutlery that has been developed for specific tasks, such as clay knives, tuning forks and graded medicine spoons, and how they work.
Child-initiated learning
Creative area
Additional resources and adult support
* Introduce a range of forks, spoons and blunt knives to the dough or clay table so children can use them to manipulate the material or create impressions on the surface. Include examples with interesting designs at the ends of the handles.
* Provide a selection of safe cutlery in a shallow tray on a table along with some thick paint and card so that children can create patterns such as regular wavy lines and rows of dots on the surface of the paint.
* Revisit the area regularly to observe the direction of play and model techniques if necessary.
Play possibilities
* Creating impressions in malleable materials using resources provided, making comparisons between impressions created by different items
* Noticing patterns and recreating them on a malleable or painted surface
* Using the resources in original ways, for example, using a spoon to drip paint on to card
Possible learning outcomes
Displays high levels of involvement in activities
Engages in activities requiring hand-eye coordination
Notices and comments on patterns
Uses simple tools to effect changes to the materials available
Child-initiated learning
Music and sound
Additional resources and adult support
* Create outdoor chimes by stringing metal spoons of different sizes close together along a washing line.
* Attach metal pans to a fence and provide metal and wooden spoons to use as beaters.
* Provide a box of safe cutlery in the music corner for children to use to accompany music CDs.
Play possibilities
* Listening to the sound of metal spoon chimes tinkling in the wind.
* Experimenting with making sounds outdoors using metal and wooden spoons as beaters.
* Playing the spoons and making other sounds with cutlery to accompany music and singing.
Possible learning outcomes
Has a strong exploratory impulse
Listens with enjoyment and responds to stories, songs and other music
Investigates objects using all their senses as appropriate
Explores and learns how sounds can be changed
Areas of learning
Personal, social and emotional development
Communication, language and literacy
Mathematical development
Knowledge & understanding of the world
Physical development
Creative development
