What to Play On My Big 'Ole Concrete Slab?

[Unregistered]

Morning glories are poisonous and may violate your licensing statutes.

[Unregistered]

Potted flowers that are non-toxic would be a great idea though, and little watering cans so kids can care for them. There are probably tons of varieties, I use impatiens in shade and petunias in sun. Both come in lots of colors. I plant mine in raised beds, but pots work too, or even window boxes on the ground next to a fence or house depending on your setup.

[Unregistered]

I would make a track around the perimeter of your space as a road for riding toys. Paint it on or use colorful duct tape. Either probably works for a while and has to be redone but it would be fun.
I would use a sand table and put various items in it periodically like sea shells, pretty rocks, aquarium gravel, small circles of wood, cuttings from pine trees or willows, maples or evergreen shrubs. Small cars & trucks, turtles, fish, dinos, forest animals, construction vehicles add play value.

[Unregistered]

And remember to add sifters to use as a tool to make softer finer sand or to sift out shells and rocks. I have flat circular ones and smaller ones with long handles.

[Josiegirl]

https://www.pinterest.com/mamabare42/ece-loose-parts-play/

I love stuff like this! Just search for loose parts on pinterest and there will be an endless amount of ideas.

Cannot wait for yard sales, going to search for fairy house makings.

[Ariana]

Why would kids get sand in their hair?! and if they did why is that a big deal?! I am literally confused here. The kids can't get dirty? this makes very little sense since they are children (sorry don't mean to be rude!).

Anyway...I have giant logs and tree stumps in my yard that the kids play with. I also have lots of twigs and branches that they use for open ended play. You can also make a teepee using branches and some cloth. Or you can make a bean teepee. Beans are literally the easiest things to care for and grow. Cardboard boxes are fun. Paint brushes with water....

[Laurel]

When you have a little money, I'd use it to buy some thrift store/garage sale play clothes for the kiddies if the parents can't afford them. Something stretchy like sweat pants so they fit longer.

Chalk isn't really messy. It just brushes right off of clothes and mine have sat on a sidewalk chalk creation with black pants. It just brushes right off. I experimented with sand and finally used a sand/water table for it. The turtle sandbox where they sit in it was too messy for me. At some point, I got rid of sand altogether.

P.S. One trick with sand flying around (if you have it in a sand table) is to 'lightly' spritz it with water. Don't soak it unless you want it that way for a messy activity. Just lightly wetting it keeps the sand 'dust' from flying into someone's face. You know when they raise the shovel up and let it fall into a bucket or whatever. As an aside, have some cotton balls handy and some water. If someone does get sand in their eye, take the wet cotton ball and blot it on the sand in the eye, NEVER rub it as it will scratch the eye. Just touch the cotton ball on the sand and it will stick and come right out.

[Laurel]

I haven't read all the posts but I can't keep plants alive either. What you can do though is fill styrofoam cups with potting soil and plant grass seed. It grows fast and you can draw a face on the cup and it looks like hair. When it gets long enough, you can give your little heads haircuts.

Someone here had a great suggestion I used. I got cheap pots and used some small sand buckets too. Let the kids have those with some potting soil or dirt and 'plant' artificial flowers from the dollar store. They LOVED this. Nowadays a lot of the potting soil you buy has added ingredients. I looked around till I found some without extra chemicals just in case they got some in their mouths by accident.

[permanentvacation]

I don't want to start anything about race, but the reason there's an issue with getting sand/dirt in their hair is because I have mainly little black girls with braided hair. It's hard to get the sand/dirt out of their hair. Some of my kids have (I don't know exactly what it's called) hair extensions whether they are technically track or weave, I don't know, but I know that in order to truly get the sand out of the extensions, you have to literally take the extensions out. Overall, whether it's their natural hair or extensions, it's a lot of mess to go through to get the sand/dirt out of their hair, so I do my best not to have sand/dirt play.

With that said, I do have a sand/water table that I do put sand in occasionally, but then I stand watch to make sure they don't get sand in their hair. Since it's so hard to get sand out of most of my daycare kids' hair, I only do sand play a couple of times per year.

[permanentvacation]

You guys have given me a lot of great ideas! Thank you!

I really like the idea of outdoor carpet and I already went to Home Depot today and got prices on it. It's only about $20 for a pre-cut 6'X8' carpet or 35 cents per square foot for them to cut the carpet to whatever size you want. I'm going to figure out what size I want while the kids are outside playing next week.

I can't do flowers because my daughter is highly allergic to bee stings. But I could have potted plants or one bigger pot with the 'fairy garden' concept.

I like the idea of planting grass in a container so the kids can play 'jungle' or whatever they want with the plastic animals and little people.

Making 'hairy caterpillars' sounds like fun!

I already have shells that I can add to the sticks and pine cones.

I have, a few times in the past, given daycare kids boxes to paint. They always love that!

Another fun painting activity is to paint a picnic. You are supposed to use newspaper, but the print gets on you too much, so I use either computer paper or brown bags. You crunch up the paper in the shape of different foods that you would eat at a picnic. For example, crunch up paper in the shape of corn on the cob and a hamburger. Then paint the crunched up shapes whatever color that food would be to make it look like that food. When the 'food' is dry, lay out a picnic blanket, put the food in a picnic basket, and play 'Picnic'.


The Pintrest link you posted has a lot of ideas!

If I remember, I might call some landscape companies tomorrow and ask about getting tree cookies and stumps cut into seats. I don't know if they will do it, but I can ask around.

I like the idea of painting a 'road' for the bikes. I don't know if it will leave enough space for other play, but I will look into it.

I have sifters in my sand/water table. But instead of sand, I typically use cotton balls, cut up pieces of yarn, cut up pieces of felt, cut up pieces of sand paper, rice, dried beans, etc. And I do add play items such as cars, animals, and little people.

I have wooden blocks that I could take outside. I was planning on taking my bigger 'baby' Legos outside. Even though they are plastic, it gives them manipulatives for outside.

The educational bookstore I go to has plastic magnifying glasses that I could buy to check out bugs that we see outside.

I already planned to get some rocks for outside, but I want to make sure they are big enough that the kids can't choke on them.

Yeah, you guys have given me a lot of good ideas that don't cost too much! I will start working on my back yard and let you guys know what I put together soon. Thank you!

[MunchkinWrangler]

I tell all my parents to go to the thrift store and buy some cheap play clothes. Usually you can get several outfits for a few bucks. If they refuse, I let them get their "good clothes" dirty. I hate to say it, but it sounds to me like your parents are micromanaging you.

This! If they don't have money to 'replace' clothes, I'm expecting those clothes to not be expensive in the first place. It is so cheap to pick up some clothes from the thrift store. And, to be honest, kids love sandboxes and they don't get that dirty. Not trying to sound like an a** but most of my parents expect their kids to be a little unkempt at pickup and when they're not they know we didn't get outside or we had and 'easier' day.

[Unregistered]

You mention the newspaper idea: just FYI, I get free giant rolls of unused paper from our local newspaper. They use these giant printers and the rolls get switched out before they are all used up. So they would just throw those rolls in the recycling. You could call around and ask any local papers you have there if you could have, for free, the left over ends of their paper rolls. They last forever. Very big. The paper is super thin so it is only useful in certain ways. But I find plenty to do with it.

[Josiegirl]

PV I have 2 little girls with hair like that. My dcms are pretty understanding about what they get into(Thankfully!)but yeh, I completely get what you're saying. My dcm told me once it took her 45 minutes to wash the sand out of her hair one night. I also had the cutest little blondie with curly curly hair. First day she came her hair was all filled with mulch. I picked it out for 15 minutes but clearly there was tons more. Can your dcgs bring hats to help cover their hair? Again, just cheapie lil baseball caps or something.

[permanentvacation]

I never thought about asking a newspaper company for left over unused paper. Thanks for the idea.

[permanentvacation]

I just found it better to not have sand play much. The kids play with other things such as rice, beans, etc. It's just not worth the hassle/worry/fuss to use sand too often.