Learn through play with Play Blocks

We've written before about how play blocks can play an important part in a child's growing up - more than just a toy, they encourage creativity, cooperation and improve spatial awareness.

To help you make the most of play blocks as a fun learning tool, we've put together these simple tips to turn playtime into an exciting and educational adventure!

Play Blocks - Learning Tips

Encourage cooperation.

Having children build together is a great way to improve their social skills and encourage cooperation. Try to set cooperative building tasks with your play blocks - perhaps you could give different children different roles - Alice could be in charge of building turrets, while Jimmy is on bridge-building duty.

Set a building goal.

Challenge your children to improvise and work towards a specific goal by setting them a building goal. Task them with building a castle with three turrets, or a tower more than four blocks high. This exercise will help improve their focus and their problem-solving capabilities. 

Involve toys and stories.

Introduce an element of role-play to playtime by including play blocks as part of a story-telling experience. Other toys can easily be added to help tell the story - the children could be building a tower for Rapunzel, or houses for the three little pigs. Introducing guided role-playing is a great way to fuel children's imaginations. 

For more role-playing ideas, check out our article on teaching with role-play.

Play together.

Get down on the floor with your children and help guide their play directly. Not only will your children love playing with you, but research has shown that children benefit the most from creative play when they have someone there to guide their playtime.

Red Monkey Play Blocks - Built Just For You

Looking for the best way to introduce play blocks to your learning environment? Our new Play Blocks are designed specifically with learning and play in mind, coming in a variety of shapes and sizes to encourage creativity and role playing.

Built from the same play-grade timber as our playground equipment, these are a first-class play product. At only £19.90 for a box of 25 blocks (including delivery!), adding some creative play to your playtime won't break the bank!

To get yours call 0116 2813 975 today, drop us an email to service@redmonkeyplay.co.uk, or simply get in touch in the comments or by social media.

Written by Tom for Red Monkey Play. For more play ideas and great play products, visit www.redmonkeyplay.co.uk.

Outdoor Autumn Games

Autumn is a beautiful time of year - red leaves on the trees, freshly frosted grass, and piles of leaves on the ground too. It's a great time for kids to play outdoors, and easier than ever to use natural resources to make some great autumn games.

We've already discussed how conkers is a great playground game for autumn. Here are three new ideas for playground activities you can introduce this autumn, all of which make the most of the natural autumn environment!

Apple Bowling

All you need is some apples and a single conker. The game plays out just like lawn bowls, or boules; the conker is thrown first, and acts as a 'jack.' Then kids take turns rolling their apples, and the player that gets their apple closest to the conker jack wins the round. An easy autumnal take on a classic lawn game!

Autumn Obstacle Course

Autumn provides all sorts of natural ways to turn your playground into an exciting obstacle course. Make use of all those fallen leaves by making piles to set out the course. If you can get your hands on some hay-bales these make great jumps, and you can hang up strings of apples for kids to crawl under. And pumpkins don't have to be just for Halloween - they can make great obstacles to run around too!

Bobbing for Apples

A classic English game! You just need a suitable container and some apples. Float the apples in the water, and have the kids try to pick them up using only their mouths - no hands allowed!

Our Water Tables are perfect for apple bobbing - and make a great water play addition to your play area at any time of year! Check them out here.

And that's really all you need - some simple games that make the most of the natural beauty of autumn. We hope you enjoy your outdoor play times this autumn, and if you have any other ideas for great autumn games, we'd love to hear them.

Written by Tom for Red Monkey Play. For more play ideas and great play products, visit www.redmonkeyplay.co.uk.

The Red Monkey Guide to Conkers

It's the season kids everywhere love - conker season! The game of conkers has been an English pastime for generations, and there're few things more natural than some healthy conker competition on the playground. To give your kids an edge this autumn, we've compiled a quick guide to the game so you know they're conkering the right way!

First you need a conker! From September through to November, your local Horse Chestnut trees will provide for you - you can find conkers lying beneath them in abundance. Extract the conker from its spiky green shell and you're ready to go.

You're looking for a conker that is roughly round and symmetrical. Make a hole through the centre and thread through a piece of string about 25cm in length. Now you're ready to play!

Players take turns striking at each other's conker, with the goal being to shatter your opponent's conker with yours.

Flip a coin to decide who strikes first. If you are the player whose conker is to be hit first, then let it
hang down from the string which should be wrapped around your hand. The striking player chooses the height at which your conker should be held.

The striking player should wrap the string around one hand, hold the conker in the other, then flick it towards the defending conker. If they hit, and the defending conker remains intact, then play turns over to the other player. If the striking player misses their opponent's conker, they are allowed up to two more attempts, then play turns over to the other player.

Conker pro tip! If the striking player hits their opponent's conker in such a way that the conker travels in a full circle on its string, then that player gets another strike. This trick is known as 'around the world.'

Advanced rules:

If the strings get tangled after a shot, the first player to shout 'strings' is awarded an extra shot.

If a conker falls to the ground at any time during play, then the opposing player can shout 'stamps' and jump on it! However, if the player who dropped the conked shouts 'no stamps' first then stamping becomes illegal, and that player can retrieve their conker in peace.

And that's all there is to it! Player continue to take turns until one player's conker is completely shattered. The victorious player can go on to challenge other players, and become the conker champion of the playground. Who knows; one day they could be competing in the World Conker Championship!

Conkers is a simple and fun game for children to play in the playground; it makes use of natural resources and can teach kids a little bit about nature at the same time. And for anyone worried about the health and safety risks of conkers, the Health & Safety Executive has some reassuring words for us.

So now you're equipped with all the conker knowledge you'll need; get conker hunter and see if you can't forage up a champion conker!

Written by Tom for Red Monkey Play. For more play ideas and great play products, visit www.redmonkeyplay.co.uk.

A Red Monkey mask for Halloween!

As Halloween approaches the Red Monkey team are wracking their brains for costume ideas - I thought I'd go one better than buying a mask and decided to make one of my own. I'm quite pleased with it so I thought I'd share it around - if you're stuck for Halloween inspiration, why not try our Red Monkey mask?

Click here to download your very own Red Monkey mask. All you need to do is print it out, preferably on some stiff card, then cut around the dotted lines and eye holes. Then put some string or elastic through the holes near the ears, and your mask is complete!

Now I just need a way to make a tail! I'm sure you've got your own Halloween ideas, and we'd love to hear them. You can get in touch using any of the social media links on the right, so if you've got a great idea you'd like to share, let us know!

Written by Tom for Red Monkey Play. For more play ideas and great play products, visit www.redmonkeyplay.co.uk.

Pumpkin Ideas

Well October is upon us and the nights are drawing in, and that means one thing for the Red Monkey kids - it's nearly time for halloween!

This charming image was provided by our friends
over at Nurture Store.

Cathy James over at the BabyCentre blog has some wonderful ideas for helping your kids decorate their pumpkins this halloween - you should check some of these out! I don't think I've seen pumpkins quite as colourful as these before.

Always prepared for a creative challenge, I set about coming up with my own pumpkin design. You can see the result below.

Okay, so it isn't a real pumpkin, but it does give me something to aim for when the 31st rolls around!

The Red Monkey Team would love to see what you lovely people can come up with - so send us your pumpkin pics!

You can reach us on Facebook and Twitter, or right here in the comments.



Written by Tom for Red Monkey Play. For more play ideas and great play products, visit www.redmonkeyplay.co.uk.

Water Play Ideas

We've already talked about how you can liven up your sand play - now it's time to talk about water! Water is great for play time - everyone knows children love splashing about. But water play can also be a great learning aid. Clever use of water play can teach children loads of things about the world around them, and they'll have fun while they're learning too!

Here are a few tips for how you can add a splash of originality to your water play.

Colourful water

Not only does coloured water look great, it's a wonderful way for children to learn about how colours work. All you need is a little squeeze of food colouring, the kind available from any supermarket, and your water will be transformed!

Now try some simple colour matching exercises - ask the kids to place the yellow duckling in the yellow water, for example, or to fill the red beaker with red water.

It's also a great opportunity for children to learn about colour mixing - let them experiment with mixing different colours of water together and see what new colours they can think up. Hopefully they'll bring these new ideas into their next art class!

Sensory Water

Don't just stop with colour - why not add some scents and herbal infusions to your water play? A little bit of cake flavouring - again available at your local supermarket - can make water smell lovely. Mixing it up with colours can teach children to associate colours and smells - try some red strawberry flavoured water, or a green peppermint flavour.

Mixing some herb cuttings in with your water can introduce more unique scents, as well as teaching children a little bit about nature. Let them mix up their own scented infusions, identifying the scents of different types of herbs - herbal tea bags and tea leaves make some great additions, too. They'll be mixing up all sorts of interesting potions in no time, and learning all the way!

Water for storytelling

Loads of children's books feature water in some way - books like Sharing a Shell, The Rainbow Fish and Tiddler. Why not bring an extra dimension to story time by turning your water play area into a scene from their favourite book?

Coloured craft foam can be used to make all sorts of water-proof story props - let the children cut and craft their own scenes and characters. Laminated pages and printouts can be great for storytelling too. See what ideas you can come up with to transform your water tables; add sand or pebbles for a beach scene, or coloured rocks to make a coral reef.

Our Water Tables are a great way to introduce water play to your play area!

Whatever you choose to do, there are loads of ways to make water play a central play and learning experience. For great water play inspirations, why not check out Red Monkey's Sand & Water range - bringing a splash of fun to any play area!

Written by Tom for Red Monkey Play. For more play ideas and great play products, visit www.redmonkeyplay.co.uk.