Green Tubes

I can't get over how easily everyone has taken to our loose part program, and we have been donated some truly neat items. The green tubes are no exception to the things that, otherwise would be thrown away and we have made use of them. A few months ago when a friend of mine gave me six boxes of these green tubes I was so eager to see what we could do with them. They have been used in a variety of ways over the last few months, including the base for a carnival game for my church, but not really in the ways I thought they would be used, they mostly were mostly being used to throw around, and as little cups in the playhouse. I'll be honest in saying, I really was starting to think that maybe I had taken more than we could handle, but they still remained outside ready for a lightbulb moment. Today that happened!

We had a new child start today, and interestingly she gravitated immediately to these tubes, and pretty quickly all the children's eyes were open to the possibility of discovery!

Look at all the things that happened with these green tubes, it was awesome! It was everything from binoculars, to waterwings, to giant muscles, to socks, to a castle, all the way to a giant tunnel!

Fort Mania

This is what we've been up to the last couple weeks. It's interesting to see where the play goes when something simple like bungee cords and clamps are placed in the room. Forts have been taking over our centre and we've enjoyed perfecting them and just exploring with the bungee cords.

The bungee cords are useful tools for moving large items, especially when there are many hands working together!

The fort making has even made it outside as well, which makes for some wonderful spaces to stop and have a snack!

Tubes are for what???

Last week I scored the mother load! A parent drove past these out front of an industrial building and immediately called me! They have now been transferred to our outdoor space. The best part of it all, is a few days later my mum and I drove past the building again, and BOOM! there they were again, so we picked them up, and now we have 11! I think we are going to have to send the industrial company a thank you note, and perhaps a note to let them know to keep 'em coming.

The children have noticed them over the last few days, but I think that some of the children were a bit overwhelmed by the enormous size of them. So last week I layed them out like this:

The children were still not too interested in them, yes, there were a couple takers, and the odd child went through one or two tubes, but quickly went onto something else. It takes patience and creativity to draw attention to things. I was beginning to think that the children were not as interested in them as I was... and that's ok.

BUT, today, with it being rainy and wet and the tubes being cardboard, I wasn't as eager to set them out, so I left them on the pallets, in a stack, under some poly plastic. 

Often not doing anything purposeful leads to something more inventive. That's what happened today!

The children immediately started climbing into the tubes.

They discovered they made great hiding spots. The thing that surprised me most of all, and you can just see it in the top right hand corner of the picture, was that this hiding spot evolved into a giant game of  'whack-a-mole'! It was with our plastic bat, and the children on the receiving end of the bat found that it hurt, but still wanted to play the game. I remembered I had some pool noodles in our storage room, so I rushed to bring them out, and the game continued and developed into a full attendance game. The pool noodles were great replacements and ensured no trips to the ice packs!

I tried to capture what I saw when it was my turn to be the whacker.

After a while the children got really into climbing in and out of the tubes and started to test how many children could fit in a tube together.

2 children....

3 children... then I was invited in, and that was not a good experience for both myself and the children... so no pictures!

We then brought them down on to the grass and rolled them around a bit.

And even rolled inside them....

The children made comparisons in the size to our biggest ball...

And climbed in and out of them again and again!

Then came the time that I got in the tube and the children rolled me down the hill. I tried to get a 'rolling photo series' of what I saw when I went down the hill! 

Rolling others down the hill is part of the fun! 

The tubes are making their way into our outdoor play... what other shenanigans will we get up to with these? You'll have to check in and see! 

I also wanted to share these two photos, because now that spring is here, we are able to spend a little more TLC on our outdoor space, and here's step one. 

This corner area was overgrown with weeds and random bits of garbage. So we fenced it off with the intent of getting to it at a later date. Well, the later date has arrived! It was rototilled and ready for grass seed and wood chips, so stay tuned for the progress to this little area and the rest of our yard. There's some exciting plans a foot!