For three weeks, as part of the KIndercultuurzomer, SpelenMaaR can be found every Wednesday from 15.00 to 17.00h in the De Nude neighborhood on the playing field on the Groen van Prinstererstraat in Wageningen.
New this year is that every Wednesday has a different theme. On Wednesday, July 27, the theme was “From marble track to flagpole.” The structure of the activities is also slightly different from previous years. We start the activity with several common games, using pre-selected loose parts materials. We developed this approach because we noticed that some children (and often their parents) are not familiar with playing with loose parts. To them, these materials seem like waste or they are overwhelmed by the quantity. By starting with guided play, we hope that children and parents learn about the materials and appreciate playing with them. We are trying this new approach in De Nude and in playground Tuindorp.
On Wednesday, July 27, the theme was “marble tracks” and we started with the gutter game. Each child was given a gutter and a golf ball. As we had hoped, this controlled and supervised play quickly transitioned into free play, where children built long marble tracks and also let go of the theme and got to work freely with the materials. We saw hut building, balancing play, sound exploration, racing, lugging, climbing, etc.
Next week’s theme is “From hopscotch to obstacle course.” The week after that: “From building to dreaming.”
