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How to build the ultimate indoor play space in your kitchen corner

Pretend play Blog header

Kids in the kitchen! 🌽🍳 Bringing play-based learning to life 

 

Children learn best through play. It’s a vital part of early childhood that encourages children to learn, develop and grow whilst having fun. In The Early Years Learning Framework, play-based learning is a central focus, and emphasises the intentional role of educators in enriching learning. (EYLF practice: Play-based learning and intentionality) 

 

Bringing a kitchen corner to life in your centre creates a stage for pretend play, role play and open-ended play that encourages imagination, language development, social interactions, sharing, as well as a sense of belonging and identity. A wonderful pretend play space allows educators to achieve  outcomes such as: ‘Children are confident and involved learners; Children are connected with and contribute to their world’. So what are we waiting for? Time to whip up the ultimate indoor kitchen play space. 🍳 

 

Hot trends to look for in kitchen sets 

 

Trend: the real deal! 

They might be ‘pretend’, but the trend is for real-look play kitchens. This comes through in details such as soft close hinges, real tapware and contemporary materials. Love!! 

 

Trend: open furnishings 

Another trend is for open furnishings, allowing easy access to shelves and cooking play essentials! We love this, as it creates a visual feast that inspires play easily. 

 

Trend: modular 

Versatility is king with these new play spaces. Modular elements you can build and shape how you like to accommodate your space and move around to keep things fresh! 

 

Our top dream (play) kitchens… 

 

Coastal & cool  

This new Norwegia Spaces Coastal Kitchen Island & Bench Set has breezy fresh vibes for days. It leans into the trends with real taps and versatile kit elements (that also complement the Natural Spaces and other Norwegia Spaces ranges). Shop the set or the Bench and Island separately. 

 

8953_MulticulturalFood Set

 

Urban & awesome  

Urban chic, early childhood-style! This new Norwegia Spaces Urban Kitchen Island & Bench Set embraces the industrial look with its modern materials, black & white look and clean lines. Shop the set or the Bench and Island separately. 

 

 

Flexible & fun 

 

The Natural Spaces Open Play Kitchen Set of 4 is so versatile. We adore the open furnishings and modular aspect of this set that has a beautiful natural aesthetic! The set includes a kitchen bench, stove, sink and cupboard. Move them around however you like to inspire play! 

 

8953_NS Open PlayKitchen

 

 

Take a peek at the whole range: Kitchen & Home Corner Furniture 

 

Let’s get cooking! 

Now it’s time to stock up the cupboards and cook up some fun learning! We’ve handpicked 10 colourful food, health and nutrition sets to invite role play, conversation, open-ended play and group activities.  

 

 

1: Multicultural on the menu 

 

8953_MulticulturalFood Set 

 

Teach little ones respect for diversity and cultural responsiveness through role play & discussion with the Multicultural Food Set. It includes a Chinese Food Set, Japanese Food Set and Italian Food Set. Each set features food, plates, condiments and a menu. Each play food set is also available separately. 

 

 

2: Tuck into bush tucker 

 

Bush Tucker Resources

 

Play snap, read, prepare a pretend meal and chat about Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander perspectives with this new Bush Food Kit. It’s focused on learning about traditional Aboriginal bush food in a tangible and fun way, encouraging role play while opening conversations about First Nations People and their culture. 

 

 

3: Teach about food allergies 

 

Food allergies resource

 

Help the little ones in your care learn about Food Allergies & Intolerances with this engaging card game. There are eight cards with food intolerances, 45 food cards, ambulance cards and more.  

 

 

4: Food bingo! 

 

Food bingo resource

 

For early literacy skills, association skills and critical thinking, you’ll love having a pack of Bingo (with 72 food items) in your kitchen corner. Each tile has an image on one side and a name on the other, so that children can practise learning associations with visual and verbal cues. There are flexible play options to suit children of various ages and abilities – match picture to picture; or word to picture. 

 

 

5: Match or sort the fruit & veggies 

 

Matching veggie resource

 

This new Fruit & Vegetable Match set lets little ones play and learn at the same time. There are 28 colour-printed wooden tiles, perfectly sized for small hands. Match the pairs, play a memory game or use the tiles to practise sorting food items: fruit vs veg; various colours; sweet vs sour vs savoury; seeds vs no seeds… it’s up to you! 

 

 

6: Learn about the food groups 

 

8953_The Food Group Book Pack

 

Potatoes, eggs or sour grapes?! Learn about food groups in a fun way with The Food Group Book Pack. This bestselling picture book series serves up a plate full of laughs, adventures and lessons with empowering and charming stories. There are seven books… from The Couch Potato to The Smart Cookie to The Big Cheese! 

 

 

7: What’s for breakfast? 

 


 

Get puzzling and prepare a yummy meal with My Breakfast Tray. This new tray from Andreu Toys will be so popular in your kitchen corner for pretend play. (Andreu Toys are committed to inclusive education, with a clear intention of promoting diversity). The wooden tray is served up with all its accessories, including toast, fried egg and more. Did someone say yum? 

 

 

8: Chop! Chop! Let’s hone those fine motor skills! 

 

Food cutting resource

 

With the Joseph Joseph Chopping Board Set, chop away with this licensed replica of Joseph Joseph’s colourful Chop2Pot folding chopping board. This fun set includes a safe-to-use Elevate knife and four pieces of ‘choppable’ food. It uses ChopPop™️ play food technology for safe play with no hook & loop fastenings or magnets in sight! 

 

 

9: Cake & coffee… let’s brew this!

 

Tea & coffee resource

 

With a cake mixer, tea set and coffee set in Melissa & Doug’s Wooden Appliances Sets, you can mix it up or cook up some mud pies! Melissa & Doug’s hand-crafted designs use durable wood and other specialist materials that are popular with educators and children alike. 

  

 

10: Wrap your food & nutrition learning up in a bow  

 

Nutrition Curriculum Kit

 

Get the cupboards ready! Our Nutrition Curriculum Kit will help you stock up on all the pretend play food you could need! You can also teach students about healthy eating in a hands-on way. There’s a huge set of play food that includes meat, breads, poultry, dairy, sweets and condiments. There’s a 36-piece container of fruits and vegetables, plus a wooden play food crate featuring the five food groups. The kit also includes a floor mat showing the healthy eating plate, with food cards and teacher notes. It’s such a valuable resource to teach about nutrition! 

 

Head here to see even more Play Foods & Shopping ideas, Play Kitchen Accessories and Food & Nutrition activities. 

 

Key food, nutrition & health dates for your calendar 

We know your little learners will use their play kitchen every day, but these annual days are a perfect time to delve deeper into the world of kitchens, health, nutrition and food! 

🥕 National Eat Your Veggies Day – 17 June  

🍓 National Nutrition Week – 16-23 October 

🥑 International Chef’s Day – 20 October 

🍇 More fun food days this year 

 

We can’t wait to hear how you create your play kitchen corner!

For more inspo, check out our Brilliant Learning Spaces booklet

 

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Teaching With Teachables

Teachables Whiteboard Magnetic Activity

You know those resources that you use every day in your classroom that make your life easier? That’s how I feel about Teachables products. I discovered these resources when I started teaching Prep last year and they are, without a doubt, the teaching tools that I use most at school.

Writing is a huge focus in my classroom, and I spend a lot of time each day engaging my students in writing through different ways and with different resources. In this blog post, I will go through how I use products from the Teachables range in my classroom as part of my writing curriculum.

Whole Group Teaching and Learning

In Prep, there are a lot of times during the day when we come together and engage in whole-group teaching and learning. Whether it be teaching proper letter formation or modelling writing sentences, I am constantly using my Teachables Magnetic Lined Write and Wipe Sheet. At my school, we teach students how to write on lines from the first term of school, so having this Lined Whiteboard near our group-time area is really handy as I am constantly using it to model writing.

Letter Formation

Whiteboard Letter Formation For Letter M

We use our Lined Write and Wipe Sheet a lot for learning about correct letter formation. When introducing a letter to my students, I will model how to correctly form that letter before students go to the tables and engage in activities to reinforce this learning. As a transition to the tables, students will come and have a go at writing this letter – my students just LOVE writing on the “teacher whiteboard”!

Sentence Work

Whiteboard Sentance Work

In my classroom, we also use our Lined Whiteboard a lot for sentence work. In this routine, the focus is on developing students’ confidence with writing sentences, editing sentences through proofreading, using correct punctuation, using finger spaces between each word and forming letters properly. Usually, I will have a sentence typed up and we will read the sentence together before I cut and jumble it up (for a ‘transformation’). As a class, we put the sentence back together and then write the sentence underneath. Doing this together as a class means that I can model the expectations before students complete this task independently at the tables.

Sentance Structure Student Book Opened With Illustration

This particular sentence (pictured) was also linked to our English rhyme unit when we were exploring rhyming books and rhyming sentences.

Learning with Magnetic Letters

Magnetic letters are a fun and hands-on way for children to meaningfully engage with literacy. Magnetic letters are the perfect tool for developing letter recognition and letter formation as well as word building and sentence building. Over the course of my teaching career, I have used various types of magnetic letters in my classroom but the thing I love about the Teachables Magnetic Letters is that the letters are in print-sized font, there is a minimum of eight of each letter, which means students are always able to find the letters they need, and the vowels and consonants are colour-coded.

Word Building

Word Building Magnetic Letters On Whiteboard

One of the ways we use our Magnetic Letters is for word building. At this time of year, most of the word building work we are doing is around CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. I will say to my students, “Let’s make a blue-red-blue word” so they can visually see that these words are made up of three letters – two consonants and one vowel.

Magnetic Whiteboard Sight Words

Sometimes, we do word building as a whole class where we will choose a word, stretch it out so we can hear all of the sounds and then record the sounds through selecting magnetic letters. Other times, I will implement word building as a small group activity where students will build words with the magnetic letters and then write them on their magnetic whiteboards also.

Practising our Names

Magnetic Whiteboard Names Activity On Blue Desktop

In the first term of Prep, learning to recognise, write and spell our names properly is a big focus. There are various ways I get my students to practise writing and making their names – sometimes we do artworks, sometimes we trace and other times we use hands-on materials to build and spell our names. A small group activity I like to set up during literacy rotations involves students making their names using the magnetic letters and then writing their name underneath. It’s a great way to practise!

Developing Letter and Number Formation

In Prep, we focus a lot on learning proper letter and number formation so that students can build confidence in their writing. There are several ways I encourage letter and number formation in my classroom and I love using different resources to build these skills such as sensory writing in rainbow rice or sand, on our Interactive Smartboard and using our Teachables Alphabet Whiteboard and Teachables Number Whiteboard.

Alphabet Whiteboard

Alphabet Whiteboard With Markers On Grass

The Teachables Alphabet Whiteboard comes in Foundation font, which is perfect for my Prep students as it is almost identical to the Queensland Beginner’s Font that we use. The whiteboards are double-sided with uppercase letters on one side and lowercase letters on the other. Usually, we will trace the lowercase side first together as a class and then turn over to the uppercase as part of our writing warm up.

Alphabet Whiteboards Complete

The best part about these whiteboards is that they feature directional, numbered arrows to showcase the correct way to form each letter. I have seen a huge improvement in my students’ handwriting as they transfer their knowledge and practice from using the whiteboards into their independent writing.

Number Whiteboard

Number Whiteboards 0-9 Numbered With Marker Sitting On Purple Marker

Similar to the Teachables Alphabet Whiteboard, the Teachables Number Whiteboard enables students to gain confidence with forming numerals correctly. There are four lines on the whiteboard, and as each line progresses, students must showcase increasing independence with forming numerals. I love this ‘gradual release’ system as it gives students confidence and guidance. The easy write on, wipe off surface of these whiteboards also makes it easy for students to correct mistakes and edit their work.

Encouraging Writing

Encouraging Writing Activity Mini Whiteboard With Book

Out of all of the Teachables products, these Lined Whiteboards are the resource I use most with my students, as it is extremely versatile. The lines on these whiteboards are spaced at 5.7cm, which makes them the perfect size for students of all ages and abilities to practise their writing, no matter how big or small their letters and words are.

Writing Literacy Game With Paperclip Word Fish And Fishing Rods

This is especially useful for Prep students who are just beginning to learn how to write on lines and are still experimenting with the sizing of letters. Some of the ways we use our Lined Whiteboards include; practising letter formation, playing sight word games, writing out our favourite page from the book we read during guided reading and independent sentence writing.

Picture Story Whiteboards

Picture Story Whiteboards On Grass

My students love using these Picture Story Whiteboards because there is room to illustrate their piece of writing, and what child doesn’t love drawing? These whiteboards are ideal for allowing students to convey their ideas through text and illustrations. We use these Picture Story Whiteboards to write and draw sentences, write and draw about what we did on the weekend, as well as write more in-depth stories. When writing on these whiteboards, (as well as with all of the other Teachables resources) we use the Teachables Thin Lined Markers as they are the perfect width and students can write on the lines successfully.


Featured Products:

Teachables Magnetic Whiteboard – 30cm x 40cm

Teachables Lined Whiteboards – Pack of 30

Teachables Magnetic Lined Write & Wipe Sheet

Thinline Whiteboard Markers Black – Pack of 12

Teachables Picture Story Whiteboard – Pack of 30

Teachables Alphabet Whiteboard Foundation Font – Pack 30

Teachables Whiteboard Number Tracing – Pack of 30

Magnetic Letters – 488 Pieces

I’ve shown you some of my favourite Teachables products. Which one of them would you like to use in your classroom? We would love to hear from you!

ABOUT HEIDI:
Heidi Overbye from Learning Through Play is a Brisbane based, Early Years Teacher who currently teaches Prep, the first year of formal schooling in Queensland. Heidi is an advocate for play-based, hands-on learning experiences and creating stimulating and creative learning spaces. Heidi shares what happens in her classroom daily on her Instagram page, Learning Through Play. See @learning.through.play for a huge range of activities, play spaces and lesson ideas.