Plan opportunities for children to tackle a range of levels and surfaces including flat and hilly ground, grass, pebbles, asphalt, smooth floors and carpets.
Ensure that equipment is appropriate to the size and weight of children in the group and offers challenges to children at different levels of development.
Plan activities where children can move in different ways and at different speeds.
Provide balancing challenges, such as a straight or curved chalk line for children to follow.
Mark out boundaries for some activities, such as games involving wheeled toys or balls, so that children can more easily regulate their own activities.
Provide sufficient equipment for children to share, so that waiting to take turns does not spoil enjoyment.
Provide construction materials such as crates, blocks or boxes to create personal and shared spaces and dens.
Take photographs to put in a book about 'Me and the things I can do'.
Health and Bodily Awareness
Provide a cosy place with a cushion and a soft light where a child can rest quietly if they need to.
Plan so that children can be active in a range of ways, including while using a wheelchair.
Be aware that physical activity is important in maintaining good health and in guarding against children becoming overweight or obese in later life.
Using Equipment and Materials
Make equipment available and accessible to all children for the whole of the day or session, if possible.
Provide activities that give children the opportunity and motivation to practise manipulative skills, for example, cooking, painting and playing instruments.
Provide opportunities for children to sometimes use all their fingers or the whole hand, for example with finger-paints or cornflour, and sometimes use just one finger, for example when making patterns in damp sand or paint.
Provide objects that can be handled safely, including small-world toys, construction sets, threading and posting toys, dolls' clothes and material for collage.
Acknowledgements
Disclaimer
00012-2007CDO-EN