Ideas for using SiliShapes
®
Sensory Circles
Product Code: 54517
Using Sensory Circles across the curriculum
Using the beautifully tactile Sensory Circles with children in the early
years will help them develop the skills and dispositions needed to
become actively involved in playful learning.
The Sensory Circles will help them develop:
•
Physical skills, including gross and fi ne motor skills.
•
Sensory awareness and the ability to explore using their
senses.
•
Practical skills including observation, manual dexterity, fi ne
motor control and hand-eye co-ordination.
•
Social skills of co-operation, negotiation, following instructions,
behaving safely.
•
Reasoning and thinking skills such as questioning, speculating,
inferring, problem solving, recognising similarities and
differences
•
Attitudes and dispositions required for exploring and
investigating, such as curiosity, persistence and diligence and a
positive attitude towards enquiry and challenge.
Supporting play in the early years
The Sensory Circles can be used to support a range of types of
play, learning and development across the early years curriculum.
Sensory Play
•
Encourage very young children to explore the different textures
on the surfaces of the Sensory Circles using their sense of
touch.
•
Place the large circles on the fl oor and support the children as
they explore the surfaces of the Sensory Circles with their hands
and feet.
•
Help the children to develop their sense of touch by encouraging
them to trace the patterns on the large and small Sensory
Circles using their fi ngertips. Try the same activity with the
circles in the water tray.
•
Place the small Sensory Circles in the feely bag, one at a time,
and ask the children to identify the colour of the circle in the bag.
Initially you may need to have the large Sensory Circles on view
so that the children can identify the patterns they can feel.
Physical Play
•
Note how well very young children use the large and small Sensory
Circles, developing their fi ne motor skills and manual dexterity as
they hold, handle and mouth the circles as they play.
•
Play a game with the Sensory Circles where the children take turns
to wear a blindfold and then work out which circle they have by
using touch.
•
Use the large Sensory Circles as stepping stones and encourage
the children to move barefoot from one circle to another. Gradually
widen the distance between the circles to challenge the children’s
ability to balance.
•
Use the Sensory Circles with an overhead projector to create large
scale images on the wall, encouraging children to develop their
sense of spatial awareness, position and direction as they position
the circles on the projector and trace over the images on the wall
with their hands.
Exploratory Play
•
Exploring the properties of the Sensory Circles will encourage
children to investigate, to engage in shared conversations and
thinking, and to pose and solve problems.
•
Ask the children what happens when they hold the large
Sensory Circles up to the light. Pose challenges for them such
as ‘Which of the circles is the easiest / most diffi cult to see
through?’
•
or ‘Can you match the lines on the purple circle with other lines
in the room?’
•
Play a guessing game where one of the children explores by
touch a Sensory Circle which has been placed in the feely
bag and describes it to the rest of the group for them to work
out which circle is in the bag. Help the children to accurately
describe the circles they are holding.
•
Encourage children to observe the effects of using the Sensory
Circles with mirrors, in water or on a light panel. Use these
additional resources as a starting point for talking to the children
about refl ections, shadows, colours, light, transparency,
translucence and opacity.
Creative Play
•
Draw the children’s attention to the details on the Sensory
Circles. Show them how to make rubbings of the different
textures using a range of media.
•
Use the Sensory Circles to see what happens when different
colours are placed on top of one another or in overlapping
patterns.
•
Use malleable materials or in the sand tray to create imprints of
the patterns on the surface of the circles.
•
Add resources such as the or Silishape Linking People,
reclaimed or natural resources to create environments for small
world play.
Care & Cleaning
Use warm soapy water to clean, rinse in clean water and then air dry.
WARNING
Silicon is by nature extremely strong however, a small cut close
to the edge can eventually lead to small parts tearing away, check
the product regularly and remove from use if there are any signs
of tearing.
Not suitable for children under 3 years of age, small parts.
Choking hazard.
TickiT
®
, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1RA, UK. www.tickit.co.uk | Commotion (Europe) BV, Schiphol Boulevard 359, 1118BJ Schiphol, NL
