Reorganising play spaces

I've been interested in Lolly's play spaces for years, and mostly had a psuedo-Montessori approach to it.  Posts about Lolly's shelves are linked here.  I've been following Mariah Bruehl's Playful Learning Spaces blog for ages, and decided to take her e-course on creating (revamping) learning spaces. 

It's been great so far!  A big part of the course is participating in the Flickr group where participants post their before and after pics, and have discussions about different types of spaces, problem solving and brainstorming. 

My biggest issue, I guess the best way to describe it, is a lack of follow-through.  I have a great idea, go a fair way to making it happen, but don't get to the last 3 feet or so.  Which I think is why my house is not that decorated, or that it's organised, but not the final 3 feet that would help stop more mess.  I think most of us have this issue, to be honest (at least I hope it's not just me), and it's something I envy admire in those bloggers I see that invest time in the last 3 feet of making a space not just functional but beautiful, or an idea not just mostly done, but done all the way. 

Doing this course was a commitment to myself to act on that last 3 feet.  I've done some innovative and thoughtful things with and for Lolly over the years (which I'm proud of) but I've never built that final layer of awesome that makes a space sing.  And it's something I've always wanted to do

So, here are my "before" photos.  I'm yet to tackle any revisions, as I've organised a big clear out of our books for next Monday, and this weekend we're re-arranging the playroom. 

Lolly has a few spaces in our home, there are shelves in the lounge room where I've done her activities and toys for years now.  They are a tad sad at the moment, and haven't had a proper review in months.  Snail also has a set of shelves in the lounge.

Lolly's current shelves, needs major work, and she doesn't play with much of this.

Snail's shelves, which are successful but too crowded

Miscellaneous table for collecting crap.

More crap.  Dining room table.

Play kitchen and giant television.  Lolly doesn't play with it here at all!

The other main area is the "playroom," one of the bedrooms we have all our miscellaneous crap in.  I re-vamped this a while ago but it hasn't been successful, still too crowded, nowhere to sit, and covered in laundry. 

Playroom.  !!!

Playroom, and giant trampoline!

Where I like to keep all the clean laundry.

Confessional over, you can see why I might want to make some of these spaces a tad more effective, and attractive! We're so lucky to have so much space, and I'd love to be using it more effectively.  I'll be posting updates when I get things done.  Wish me luck.

Shelves this month

Here are our shelves for Lolly (three and a quarter) and Snail.  I recently went through them and got rid of a lot of stuff as they were collecting crap [by crap I mean awesome toys] and here's what we have out now, post purge.  These are Lolly's:

Top shelf: Lauri tall stacker blocks, number activities, her tool box, chockers with plastic and wooden tool sets (the white basket underneath has more).   Bottom shelf: stacker boxes and colouring in books, her marble run, and the rest of her tools. 

Lauri tall stacker blocks, not a lot of use of these to build upwards as yet, but lots of wand and stick building, leading to dog thumping.

Lolly is crazy about numbers at the moment, so I've got a collection of number activities, a foam puzzle, number cards, and a set of wooden numbers. 

Here are Snail's shelves:

Spinning top, switch adapted bubble machine, drums and bells, her musical whacking toy (lol), her collection of toys that make a sound when you squish 'em, and her cars.  I'd say her squishing toys and her whacking toy is popular here (when she is interactive).

We also scored this great road table from a friend (it doesn't fit in her house), so we're using it as a loaner.  Lolly is loving this for garage play and train building!

Play chaos!

From the Shelves: Styrofoam Sculptures

I had this activity out last month, with all the birthday celebrations she made me several "cakes" with this one!  She found it just the right amount of challenging to do, it took a few goes to get the thicker lollipop sticks into the foam, but once she'd mastered it, she was good to go.

To set this up, you need a block of styrofoam (I cut a square block in half), some toothpicks, some lollypop sticks, large beads, and I added in styrofoam stars.  I sourced all of this (that I didn't already have stashed away!) at my local Spotlight, it's cheap, and there are HEAPS of material left to use for other things (lollipop sticks and toothpicks make great accessories for playdough cakes).   

Our shelves in April

A mammoth post on our shelves this month!

They normally look this this (a little crowded!):

I've got (from left of picture) on the top shelf:
- A basket with a rainmaker and bell shaker on (for Snail, mostly, though both girls get going on them sometimes). 
- Snail's spinning top she got for her birthday from some lovely friends!  Both girls love this!
- A tray with a set of ocean animals and fish (after our Aquarium adventures)
- Lolly's horse collection
- The green basket contains a set of Link 'Ems, a building toy I now can't recall the proper name of, or I'd link from here (lol).  This is a close up:

- then a basket with her new blocks, they are awesome, and construct marble rolling castles!!  A present for her birthday from the same awesome family that got the top for Snail (xo).  They are Viola building blocks and you can get them here.



 She loves this!  It is out several times a day, with requests to build castles.  She has learnt to construct simple sections so the marble rolls into the collector, and is gradually making them more complex.

On the bottom shelf, from left, are her stacker blocks (mostly used as horse stables these days), some more horses, then her tools sets, next to the plastic bag of marbles for the blocks, and finally her bug catcher, complete with bugs! and a bucket of dinosaurs.  Oh, and on the end there is a felt board that my sister got her for her birthday, which she is enjoying.

The shelves are a little crowded at the moment, we've been renovating our kitchen, and the rest of the house is full of boxes and things that are going to other rooms, so the playroom is a bit of a disaster.  We've been relying on our shelves for fun things to do lately!  We are planning an exciting family room upstairs, so more on that once we get furniture moved and things going!  There will be a library area, play area, and study up there very soon!

I thought I'd include a pic of her "homework" table in the study next to my desk.  She is very keen on sitting here with me doing "work", which is mostly cutting out dinosaur pictures, colouring with crayons, using stickers, using simple stamps, and making cards to send to Nanna and Pop.  Excuse the mess, she is also fond of chucking everything she is finished with on the floor!  She drags the bin round to cut shapes into.

Serious face!

And this month I've set up proper shelves (finally!) for Snail, normally I was just storing her stuff on a small table or on the floor so she can reach it, but we went to Ikea for a simple cube unit that she can still reach everything.

Old "shelves" for Snail

Snail modelling the new shelves!

 I have her wagon out, filled with soft toys, her snail block toy, the Backyardigans car (it sings a song, she LOVES this!), a stack of toys for Lolly until we get the playroom done (more on these in a future post), and her counting hammer toy (she has out in this pic).  On the shelf behind her are some musical instruments.  Her bubble machine goes on here, too, but it's out on the table at present.  I've added a work table for Lolly in the corner. 

She was very interested in putting this shelf unit together, and can reach all of the things on it, so I'm hoping it will work for us when she's back here Friday!

A few new things

Our shelves are pretty much the same at the moment, though I am in the process of doing a heap of new activites up for her!  More on that soon...

We got her a cheap tool set to add to her lovely wooden set Nanna and Pop got her for Christmas, it came with a lot of different types of tools that we thought she might like.  She loves building things with it, here she is with DinnerDad helping to build a stable for her horsey.

We thought the package was hilarious, not only is there a picture of some kind of serial-killer boy, but the subtitle says: "This is High Product it Can With You Wonderful!"  Also "Safety and Fun" - whatever that is.

I've added a tray of collage, glue and scissors to her shelves, Lolly is loving doing this at the moment!  I got these adorable scissors at Woolies, they make a quacking sound when you open them, too cute!  You can also see the tray of horses I'm leaving out at the moment. Lolly is obsessed with horses, and likes to have the out and together.

  

Here are my beginnings of Snail's shelves, her banger/pop up toy (thanks Nanna and Pop!), a Backyardigans car that sings a song when you move it (she loves this), and an Elmo book.  I'm planning a second low shelf for Snail's things, but am just using the table at the moment.

This week's shelves

What with floods and crazy holiday times, Lolly's shelves had become a bit of a catch all of chaos for whatever she had out playing with at the time.  I've recently done a sort and put away, and put out some new things that she is enjoying!  Again, excuse the grainy phone shots, my lovely camera is still mouldy :(  Here is the bench I'm using as her shelves since we did up the lounge room.  It works well and is a good height for her, and gives three roomy sections underneath.

On top we have her money tray, some animals in a bucket, a lock box, her horses, a container of padlocks and keys, and one of click-together eggs.  Underneath are her stacker blocks, her tool box (Christmas pressie from Nanna and Pop!) and some toy library puzzles.

I got this lock box from the toy library - she LOVES this!  It's interesting for the different locks, and she treats it as a "stables" for her various plastic animals. 

Hiring this sort of thing is great, it only engages a child for a short while (relatively), I hire it for 2 weeks and by then she will be pretty much over a toy like this one.  I love the toy library!  We also hire a lot of puzzles from there, same thing, they remain a challenge for such a short while, then she isn't interested any more, making me glad I didn't pay for them, other than a small hire fee!  It was $9 to hire the lock box for 2 weeks, compared to around $90 to buy one!

Here are her two horses (lol) and egg shapes she likes to put together, and put stuff in (though she has not chosen this at all since I put them out "officially"!).  I also got the idea to do padlocks and keys with Lolly from a lovely blog - One Hook Wonders.  Lolly loves keys, and is working out locks, but I hadn't thought to add something to her shelves before until reading Nicole's blog post.  Thanks!  As per her recommendation, I'll put a matching sticker on the lock and key it goes with.  She's been keen on these so far, but I the two small ones are too fiddly for her little hands, and the locks on them are quite hard to do.  I'm planning to get some more large locks soon for this activity.

Money matters!

Here's a close-up of the tray I've done in response to her love of coins and money!  It has her little cat purse (thanks Nanna!) and a small piggy bank that can be opened underneath that I got on sale for a dollar!  She likes this, and stacks the coins and makes patterns with them as well. 

I recently bought her more ocean animals, which live here, but which get played with at the sink every day!  And a new set of dinosaurs due to her recent addiction to Harry and his Bucketfull of Dinosaurs.  And also a bucket :p

Along the bottom of the bench I've got some new puzzles from the toy library.  I've noticed Lolly is less interested in puzzles now, and more into imagination games with her range of plastic animals and dinosaurs.  She's okay if I do them with her :D

Her stacker blocks are in use a lot, more as "stables" for a variety of animals.  She lays them out in patterns and puts things in them (she's loved putting things in things since she was a tiny baby!) - too cute!

Barn and bucket for small plastic animals.

This is across from her shelves, and normally has two chairs set up at it, too (they are on semi-permanent duty as "stable" doors ATM nearby - lol).  The white container is for more plastic animals, but she LOVES these so much that they are always in buckets and other containers around the house as she plays with them.  Oh, and that's my vacuum cleaner.  lol.

Down next to the bench, I've got her Poingo Dora book, which was a Christmas present for the girls (Dora for Lolly and Elmo for Snail!).

She quite likes this, though apparently we got the old system, not the new one - lol.  It's pretty good, lots of interaction, games and words, and it reads the books to you!

So that's our shelves at the moment, it's nice to have new things out to play with, and a glimpse of what Ms Nearly 3 is interested in!

This week's shelves

The shelves have been sadly neglected for a couple of weeks.  But I managed some work on them the other night, and this is how I have them set up for this week:

We have sparkly pom pom sorting at the top, and her hammering toy (with the pieces in a little pot); on the second shelf, her number puzzle, a space where the flower acitivity goes, and her bead threading; along the bottom, a bowl with her matching cards in, her matching box, a basket of blocks, and our library books.

I have some new activities out - a "flower" building activity with pipe cleaners and big buttons, some sparklies for sorting with an easter egg chocolate tray, and some lizards for sorting and playing!

This is a lovely idea I got off a blog in my travels (wish I could recall which one!), to put pipe cleaners in one of these chocolate shakers (I got this at Woolies for only a few dollars).  Then you can make little flowers by using buttons.  I got these lovely colourful large buttons from Spotlight, they were pricey at around $10, but worth it I think, as I can use them for sorting as well.  I wanted something too large to be a choking risk for littler kids we have to visit.  Putting the pipe cleaners in the holes is a great fine motor activity, as is the button threading!  Lolly really enjoys this and it has been out every day so far!

The sorting is popular, too, but mostly for throwing the sparklies in the air then picking them up again.  I got these sweet sparkly pom poms from Spotlight for a couple of dollars.  Lolly likes to put each colour in a separate egg shape, as well, when she's not throwing them round the lounge!

This is the lizard sorting I put out, from a set I got for a couple of dollars at Crazy Clarks.

She doesn't really "sort" these, more just likes to put them in the containers.  The set turned out not to be great for matching, either, too many different colours.  But she likes them, and I have them out on her table by the window. 

This week's shelves.

After our big tidy up and sort on the weekend, here are Lolly's shelves for this week (these are in our lounge room)!

The top shelf has a great shape/colour/number puzzle I picked up a Crazy Clarks of all places, half price, so only $5!!  It's wood (but was made in China).

Lolly enjoys both the puzzle and the solid blocks it's made of.  Next to that is the sorting box.  Next shelf down has a bucket of beads I bought (as the toy library ones were very popular).  I used laces from a lacing activity she's not ready for yet, they're so colourful!  She has bought me this activity several times since I put it out.

I'm trialling a small basket of blocks, after reading that kids often find vast collections of blocks overwhelming, and that smaller selections were more approachable.  No interest in it yet, I plan on getting it out to play with today.

Next to that are some favourite library books, and on the bottom shelf are some puzzles from the toy library, and the rest of the library books.  I'm not happy with storing them all here, and plan on moving them to a plastic bin in the other half of the lounge near our rocking chair, trying to use that space more.

Wow, I sure have a lot to show today!  On the off chance you're still reading, here is the shelf under the TV -

Two lots of stacking blocks (the second wood ones are from when she was small, and only have three pieces), and two plastic containers with some coins in it - or "pennies" as Lolly calls 'em!  She loves pouring them out and sorting them, then putting them back in another container, and then doing it all again!  She has been playing with the blocks several times a day lately, stacking them correctly by size, and also toying with stacking them incorrectly and laughing when they fall down (or get knocked over.  I have to laugh as I'm on the couch writing this, and she's built the blocks right next to me, up to number 3 as she can't reach any higher when they're on the couch.  So cute!!  She does this so often, and the pink tower is such a big part of early Montessori, that I am thinking of buying another set, as this one is missing number sever, throwing out the careful gradations of the tower.  I spotted a playschool set at the ABC shop that might be a present from me once I get paid this week :D

Here is her work table today: marbles again.

In the play area behind our couch, I set up some dolls.

Lately Lolly has been interested in feeding dolls and putting them to bed, so I dug out Snail's old doll bed, and put two dolls out (it's VITAL to have one for each of the girls!! This avoids most of the screaming - lol).  There is a little stroller that goes here too.  I'm planning on adding some toy food, and some cups and plates.  Those who know me will know I do NOT plan on putting out bottles, we're breastfeeders here!! 

I'll do an update on what she likes and has been playing with later this week.  :D