This is the activity we always start the Easter holidays with. It is no exaggeration that it provides them with days of open ended play. Ioan (6) and Finn (4) have been counting down sleeps to all the fun they could have with it, and I’ve been looking forward to having some time to catch up on jobs.

Resources

From Poundland:

  • Carrots
  • Bunnies
  • Chicks
  • Lambs
  • Flowers

Household objects and toys:

  • Tile samples
  • Carpet samples
  • Corrugated card
  • Butterflies
  • Ostheimer trees
  • Grapat loose parts
  • Grimms rainbow house
  • Grimms rainbow stackable bowls

Method

They set this up in Cian’s nap time. Finn started off by sorting the grapat pieces, working out which would be useful for his egg factory. Ioan used flooring samples as a base for the garden.

Finn then got straight to work making his chocolate factory.

He made sure that the factory manager was politely reminding the Easter bunnies to make eggs. Ioan was providing the catering.

Ioan made a table for the Easter eggs and Finn made a conveyor belt for his eggs to move along, before they get wrapped.

Ioan explained his lunch time system for the bunnies and sheep.

Ioan tried using some adjectives to describe the scene he was making.

They set up a nursery corner, for all the baby chicks. Apparently, “We need lots of Easter chicks to grow in to ‘Easter hens’. They lay the special Easter eggs that the bunnies turn in to chocolate eggs.”

Before and after:

When Cian (17 months) came down from his nap, he was very excited to see the tray they’d set up. He made some of the animal sounds as he walked round the edge, then started filling a carrot storage jar with grapat eggs. He filled and emptied it for about 10 minutes.

Then he moved on to filling and emptying one of the bowls. He was trying to say, “Cheep cheep” when he found the chick.

He played with the chicks and moved some of the resources around.

DfES Early Learning Goals (2017)

Expressive arts and design

ELG 17 – Being imaginative:

Children use what they have learnt about media and materials in original ways, thinking about uses and purposes. They represent their own ideas, thoughts and feelings through design and technology, art, music, dance, role-play and stories.