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Anna | Sensory Play & Learning | Activities for 2-6 Year Olds

@creative.play.everyday

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✨ Inspiring little minds through play
🌿 Sensory • STEM • early maths
🦕 Small-world & themed invitations
📍UK
🤍 Collabs / PR ↓

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Children went on a colourful sensory adventure with beetroot during our taste education session!

Armed with child-safe knives, mashers, spoons, and bowls, the children explored steamed beetroot through all their senses; touching its soft texture, mashing it, observing its deep red and purple hues, and, of course, tasting this earthy little gem!

And the best part? When our little chefs got fully immersed in their beetroot creations, they got happily splashed with shades of red and purple, making them look like the cutest monsters!

Because food education is so much more than what’s on the plate; it’s about curiosity, confidence, messy play, and building positive relationships with food!

Messy faces, happy hearts, and tiny taste explorers in action!
#montessori #berkhamstedmums #tasted #reallifelearning #foodliteracy

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Our little explorers have been busy collecting nature’s treasures on their nature walks. Indoors, they are busy revisited their discoveries with their magnifying glasses and checklists, carefully observing, identifying and ticking off what they had spotted.

And amongst the excitement came a little moment of reflection: “We haven’t spotted a squirrel yet!”

Because learning isn’t just about finding everything on the list. It’s about looking closely, asking questions, noticing what’s around us and understanding that nature doesn’t always unfold as we expect.

When learning is rooted in real experiences, nature becomes more than a backdrop; it becomes the teacher.

Through these simple, hands-on experiences, children develop their observation skills, concentration, language, early scientific thinking and independence. They begin to make connections between what they see, touch and collect, building a deeper understanding of the world around them.

This is the beauty of a Montessori-inspired approach: following curiosity, learning through the senses and giving children the freedom to discover at their own pace.
#montessori #berkhamstedmums #autumn #naturelearning #earlyyears

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World Space Week!

Our little astronauts explored a moon-themed sensory tuft tray, using spaceships, astronauts, rockets, rocks and coloured salt to create craters, collect “moon rocks” and imagine life on the moon.

In the early years, hands-on, open-ended play gives children the freedom to wonder, investigate, create and make sense of the world around them.

Because every little explorer starts with a big imagination!
#montessori #spaceweek #spaceexploration #sensoryplay #berkhamstedmums

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Fancy winning your very own KCS Communication Board? 🥳

Head over to our pinned post to check out our latest giveaway with the KCS Champions!

#Giveaway #EarlyYears #Primary #LearningThroughPlay

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The Spotlight blogs are back!🍂🍃

Exclusively developed by KCS, these tactile silicone trays are perfect for sensory exploration, messy play, loose parts activities, and outdoor learning adventures.

Loved by educators and children alike, they’re a simple yet versatile addition to any early years setting, supporting fine motor development, creativity, and open-ended play.

See how childcare settings are using them and get inspired with our latest blog, link in our bio 🍁

#EarlyYears #SensoryLearning #MessyPlay #NaturePlay #EYFS

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In celebration of our incredible new team of KCS Champions, we’re offering one lucky winner the chance to get their hands on one of our exclusive to KCS, Communication Boards!

The Communication Board is a versatile, rechargeable ICT resource designed to develop early communication, listening, and language skills. With fully recordable and personalisable pockets, this versatile tool supports speech, storytelling, phonics, multilingual learning, and much more, making it an ideal addition to any early years or primary learning environment.

🩵How to enter:

Simply follow our account @kcs_education

As well as EACH of our brilliant new KCS Champions:
@earlyyearsnorthyorkshire
@creative.play.everyday
@emma.life.in.eyfs
@great.adventures.with.alfie
@homeschoolingtwoboys
@leigha.elizabethh
@mrshenrys.helpfulhints
@mylittlegirltribe
@orchard.of.two
@ourbookishplaydays
@the_ark_childcare
@the_play_adventures_

Then to let us know you have entered, like this post and tag a friend!

For an extra entry, share to your story

Entrants must be from the UK and the giveaway closes at midnight on Sunday 4th October. For full T&C’s visit our website.

Best of luck! 🤞

#Giveaway #EarlyYears #LearningThroughPlay #Primary

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Miss E Sunday Share 🍂🤎

A selection of some INCREDIBLE set ups from the Miss E gang this week! There was sooooo many amazing and inspirational posts I’ll be doing a Monday Share tomorrow too! 😍

Which will you be trying next week?

All available to download alongside thousands of other printables over on the Miss E website! 🤎

#eyfsideas #eyfsteacher #iteach

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September may mark the beginning of autumn, but for our children, summer is still very much alive in their memories.
As part of our holiday book, many of the children shared photographs and stories of their beach adventures. We took a cue from their interests and brought those experiences back into the classroom creating a beach sensory tray complete with sand, water, fish, boats, swimming rings and more.

This is Montessori in action: following the child.

Rather than simply moving on because the season has changed, we use children’s interest as a starting point for learning. Because when learning begins with something a child knows, loves and has experienced, it becomes meaningful.
#montessori #berkhamstedmums #earlyyears #nursery #summerholidays

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DIY GOOP SLIME
A very special request from a little one who told us, “I can’t find my slime at home… please tell my mummy how to make it!”

So here we go, Mummy (and Daddy!)

All you need:

Cornflour
Water
A little food colouring
A tray or bowl
Mix it together and you’ve got the coolest sensory activity!
It looks and feels like a solid… but squeeze, crunch or press it in your hands and suddenly it behaves like a liquid.

And the sensory input? Amazing. It’s a simple way for little hands to explore texture, pressure, movement and cause-and-effect, while keeping them engaged and curious.

It might get messy but that’s part of the fun! Pop down a tray, let them explore, and enjoy that rare little window to sit down, have a coffee and breathe😀

Busy parents-We’ve got you. ❤️

#montessori #berkhamstedmums #earlyyears #playideas #homelearning

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“There must be provision for the child to have contact with nature; to understand and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature.”

Dr. Maria Montessori believed that regular connection with the natural world is a vital necessity, not an optional luxury, for a child’s psychological and physical development.

Scientific inquiry is about asking questions, observing, investigating and discovering how the world works.
In our Montessori environment, the children explored mini-beasts through hands-on investigation. They went on nature walks, carefully collected insects for observation, and used magnifying glasses and microscope to look closely at their features and movements.

Through this experience, children developed key scientific skills such as observation, curiosity, questioning, prediction, comparison, classification and communication.

Moreover, the integration between indoor and outdoor learning made the children’s knowledge meaningful and memorable. It allowed them to connect vocabulary, classification and scientific concepts with real experiences in nature. Most importantly, it encouraged children to develop a sense of wonder, curiosity and responsibility towards the living world around them.
#montessori #berkhamstedmums #reallifelearning #earlyyears #minibeasts

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In Montessori, practical life activities are about so much more than learning everyday skills. They build independence, coordination, concentration, and confidence. As children master these real-life experiences, they naturally begin to incorporate them into their imaginative play, extending their learning in meaningful ways.
In this sensory exploration, our focus was on using the senses of touch and smell to discover a variety of citrus fruits, including grapefruit, lemons, and oranges. Children explored the different textures, scents, and characteristics of each fruit, engaging their senses through hands-on investigation.

What made this activity even more special was what happened next. Drawing on the practical life skills they had already developed, the children independently transformed their sensory experience into imaginative play. They reached for the lemon squeezers, pretended to make refreshing lemonade, and even used yellow pom-poms as “lemons,” squeezing out their imaginary juice with great excitement.

This is the beauty of Montessori! The learning doesn’t stop when the activity ends. Practical life experiences become part of children’s play, allowing them to revisit, deepen, and extend their understanding through creativity and imagination.

#montessori #berkhamstedmums #earlyyears #practicallife

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