AnjiPlayDate: Week 4

New participants arrived, repeat visitors build on past play.

We had our biggest indoor crowd yet (52, I think?) and still the room, while full and busy, didn't feel overwhelming.  (at least not to me--parents, did you feel crowded?  Should we start spreading out into the main library areas?  Chime in in the comments section!)

This week, the red tops saw a large variety of play.  They were used to spin toys around in:

 And spin kids around in:

 (check out this awesome static hair!)

 And here one was incorporated into making a "duck":

early construction of the duck:

 

Here is the play story for this duck:

And here they became turtle shells:

 

the blocks made tall buildings:

 rocket ships:

 And these fabulous structures:

 These siblings worked very hard on their house.  They spent a lot of time discussing the colorful scarves that they were adding.  Check out their play stories!

 

The clay is being slowly broken down into smaller bits.  This kiddo spent a very, very long time working at the clay table to create this amazing road.  His persistence was incredible to watch.

 

 

 

another method for drilling into clay:

Here were some more unique play ideas today:

 This little one loved putting this pen into this tube, over and over and seeing it pop out of the other end if he pushed far enough that it popped out from the bottom edge of the tube.

 She told me she was in a boat.  The ball is a wave crashing into the boat and the scarf is her oar.

 He enjoyed jumping with this rope until the hook popped off the wall (just attached with adhesive, no big deal) then he played with the hook trying to put the pieces back together for awhile.

 

One more fun story from this week:  

The same little guy from last week was putting this plastic bucket on his head and enjoying running around the room, softly crashing into people and tables and anything in his way.  Then, he stopped and tried putting the bucket on a friend's head:

She wasn't too sure if she liked it, so he put it back on his head.  A few minutes later, he head-butted her with his bucket and she cried.  About15 minutes later, I noticed she'd decided to try it out again on her own:

Please note: "Anji Play,” refers to a specific philosophy and comprehensive approach to early education developed by Ms. Cheng Xueqin in Anji County, China. I use the term "Anji Play" to describe my programming and throughout this blog with the explicit permission of Ms. Cheng because our programming has been developed as part of a close collaborative relationship with her and her team of Anji Play educators. If you are interested in learning more about how you can bring Anji Play to your community, please visit www.anjiplay.com