Children in Need Activities

Mid-November means Children in Need and in true Little Learners style we focused our classes on Pudsey theme. Pudsey wears a bandana with spots which links perfectly to our Swirlo mark of circles and swirls. In this blog, I will share the activities we had at Little Learners Basingstoke.

Coloured Rice

An all-time favourite and a perfect sensory resource that children of all ages LOVE. The babies explore and feel it beneath their toes. The slightly older ones begin to fill tubs and pour from different containers. And the preschoolers immerse themselves in role play and make ‘cakes’ and ‘drinks’ for us grown-ups. For this tray, I used different coloured rice to represent spots and then put Pudsey pictures on lolly sticks. The children spent ages exploring and mixing the rice to create a lovely rainbow mix. At one point there were 5 children all sitting concentrating and learning through play.

How to make coloured rice: I pop the rice straight from the packet into a bowl, add paint and then swirl it using my hands. I then leave it for a little bit to dry and pop it in an air-tight container. Rice can keep for ages too so a brilliant one to reuse.

Cous Cous Pudsey

I love using cous cous in trays as it’s easy to colour and shape. I cooked it as normal but added yellow food colouring into the water before I added it to the cous cous. For the tray design, I sprinkled some flour for the bandana and cotton reels for the spots.

Fine Motor Activity

Children in class love pom poms and sorting. For this activity, I laminated Pudsey pictures and popped tongs, pom poms, tubs and a bottle in the tray. Watching the children in class I noticed how this activity really caters for all ages. The youngest explored the sensory feel of the pom poms and looked at the colours. Some children used their fingers to put them into the tubs and the bottle. The older children used tongs to pick up the pom poms and sort them on the bandana matching the colours. A great fine motor activity. If you do this one at home, you could use dry pasta and bottles and containers.

Please share any other Children in Need Activities, we at Little Learners would love to hear them.

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Have fun.

Lene x