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Diggers, rocks, and "concrete"
In Te Rūma Kākano, the tamariki love diggers, dump trucks, and messy play! Kaiako Steph decided to set up an activity to explore these. She mixed up some oobleck (cornflour and water) with black food colouring to make "concrete", and poured this into an upside-down water trough lid. Then she added some rocks, diggers, and dump trucks.
This activity provided tamariki with several different learning opportunities. Some weren't too keen on touching the oobleck, but they enjoyed stacking the rocks in the dump trucks instead. Some tamariki mainly interacted with the oobleck, letting it run through their fingers, scraping it back up again, and slapping the tray with their hands to make it splatter.
Kaiako supported tamariki by making sure everyone got a turn with one of the diggers or dump trucks. For the tamiriki who have communication skills and using oral language as a learning goal, kaiako supported their learning by asking questions, such as "what colour are the trucks?", "what does the concrete feel like?" and providing words as prompts for tamariki to copy. One tamaiti used his prior knowledge of dump trucks to describe what it was doing when it tipped the rocks out, saying "tip it up".