Outdoor Play Link up - Bottle Babies

I have been a long  time admirer & follower of the fabulous Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School and had long admired their 'Bottle Babies', but if I'm honest had thought they were just an unusual resource that they had come up for themselves. However, over the summer I got involved in an on-line group of teachers & day care providers & I finally discovered that the Bottle Babies were not an original or peculiar resource dreamed up by Lesley but rather they had come from an excellent book on Sensory Processing Disorder - The Out-of-Sync-Child Has Fun. 
You can read more about the why of them over on this blog post by Pre-School Play
& see how to make them at this wonderful post by Happy Hooligans.

All I can say is that they are one of the best, cheapest & easily accessible resources I have ever come across. I put an appeal out to the school parents for 2 litre bottles on my page & managed to gather up over 30 in no time at all. I made mine up before the children started back, so they were there from day one for them & could be introduced as the Bottle Babies. 

So far 5 weeks in, they have proved so popular, some of the children gather them up & take them to the 'tree house', others have used them to block off parts of the playground or a path to crawl & walk upon, sometimes they are taken for a ride on the back of a bike or in a pram. They have even been put up on a table to provide 'refreshments' at a wedding!!

 

Our Bottle Babies live outside in some tyres & are part of the whole tidy-up routine as they are gathered from every corner of the playground. They are a good starting point for some children to play togther - hunting for the red/blue/green ones etc.

 Of all the posts linked up last week there were actually 2 that meant a lot to me,from Children Learn Best In Their FreePlay mainly because I love to see people using recycled boxes & cheap resources to have fun outdoors but also because a few months ago I got into a discussion on line with Erum about blogs & what purpose they served for teachers. I was then so pleased to see that Erum had started a blog & is sharing all the adventures of her class. It is always amazing to be able to catch a little glimpse into settings around the world & I think it's the best thing about blogging - making connections with like minded people around the world.

How did your kids play outdoors this week?

• Any kind of children's outdoor play-related posts are welcome!

We'd appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we'll gladly further share your post on Facebook/ Twitter/ Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back.

Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured. (If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the 'featured' button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!