Active World Tuff Spot Tray ideas and inspiration – all in one place!
Small World Play
Small world themes created within the Active World Tuff Spot Tray are ideal for sparking imagination and play. You could encourage children to create their own small worlds to explore using props and resources provided or found. Alternatively, you may want to setup a provocation that will inspire talk and support language development.
Add a themed mat to the base to give you a great start to creating your own small world. Mats help spark the children’s imagination. With a few extra props, children love recreating stories they have heard before or making up their own.
Below is a selection of different small world tuff spot tray setups from beautiful fairy villages to construction sites and pirate adventures. Imagine using storytelling skills to create a shared story and bring one of these mini adventures to life! You could place the Tuff Spot Tray in the middle of your small group and encourage children to select which item will come up next in your story.
Remember – some children though, may simply want to dismantle and build their own alternative, so do consider how much time you spend creating based on the outcomes and learning you want to support and develop.
You could get really creative and create scenes/provacations from a Magical Fairy and Elf Wonderland or a Jurassic Park themed Dinosaur Land. These examples were created by the Clare Wilson.
Alternatively, this simple tray just includes mud and stones – the children can then add their dinosaurs and get stuck in! Add water to make a real messy land! Why not build mountains and valleys with the mud?
Reflective Play
Children are fascinated by mirrors and their reflections. Try adding a plastic mirror insert into the bottom of your tray. It could become a magical looking mirror, a frozen lake or an enchanted wishing pond!
There are many resources available to complement your reflective scene – you could try metallic fabrics, Glow Resources, Mirror Pebbles, Metallic Boulder Blocks, and the Iridescent or Radiant resources
Children love to use other reflective resources such as pans, spoons and foil blankets and materials – they instantly grab their attention. The mirror inserts make a lovely base for collections – experiment and explore with shiny and wooden spoons and wooden accessories. Add marvellous metallic construction blocks and pebbles to create a real reflective world.
Ball Play
A simple and popular use for the tray in settings is to fill the tray with play balls. Young children love to sit in the Tuff Spot Tray amongst all the colourful balls. The balls will often end up all over the room but they can help to fill the tray again and often enjoy hiding objects for each other to find.
Schematic Play
Active World Tuff Spot Trays can be filled with resources that will support and enhance a child’s schematic interests. Fill the tray with items that are aligned to the rotation schema such as rolling pins, balls, vehicles, items with lids and spinning tops.
Why not line your tray with paper for children to create their own scene, such as a map with roads to explore and travel!
Add building bricks and construction sets to allow children to create structures, containing them in the tray, without being knocked over or damaged. If your child is interested in transporting, enveloping and containing, make collections of interesting and varied items for them to explore and place in the Tuff Spot Tray.
Sensory play
Try adding different sensory materials such as crazy soap, soap flakes, ice, shaving foam and cornflour mixtures. Children can mix, swirl and make marks including letter and number formations.
Children love exploring jelly. They can explore it from inside the tray or outside depending on their confidence level with sensory materials. Hiding toys in the jelly helps to keep children’s attention – include objects to support the different themes you may be covering on different days. Always ensure children are well supervised at all times. Try adding different textured materials for sensory play and bury items underneath for children to hide.
Try mark making in glitter too! Add snowflakes and white confetti for a wintry feel.
Cut up white packaging to create a white tray liner and then cut tiny scraps as confetti. Instant Snow is also fab for tuff trays!
Sand and Water
The trays are perfect for holding Sand and water. Take them outside and use on the ground or on height adjustable stands for some messy and sensory play, using bubbles and boats in the water, and buried treasure and metal detectors in the sand to incorporate ICT into the play!
Fill the tuff spot tray with sand and add Squidgy Sparkle Letters or Numbers or shapes to the sand – which letters can the children find? Can they identify each one? Can they find enough letters to make a word?
Create a turtle tuff spot. Fill a tuff spot tray or similar with a water and bubble solution and place a laminated copy of the song inside. Immerse the turtles in the soapy water and sing the rhyme together.
The Turtle Song
I know a little turtle
His name is Tiny Tim
I put him in the bathtub
To see if he could swim
He drank up all the water
He ate up all the soap
Now he’s got bubbles
Deep down in his throat …
Painting
Active World Tuff Spot Trays are great for keeping paint in one area. Filling the tray with a selection of different colours and allowing children to use this for foot painting is a fantastic activity, simply make sure you hold their hands so they do not slip. Alternatively using their hands children can make their own marks in the paint and then print their drawings using paper to take home or display. You could incorporate some big art tools to pattern and mark make.
Discovery
Fill the tray with a variety of items linked to a theme such as Sea creatures or mini beasts and encourage the children to explore and identify what they can see. It is also a lovely idea to fill the tray with items found on the beach, in the woods or in the back garden. Provide magnifying glasses so that the children can look at the patterns and details. These discoveries can help draw out new vocabulary or observations which the children will love to share.
Fine Motor Skills
Use the tray for focused activities such as developing fine motor skills. Place cup cake tins in the tray for threading items to be placed into. Select a range of threading resources such as chunky beads, pasta, giant buttons. Provide colourful shoes laces, ribbons and string for the children to choose from.
Fill the tray with items like pom poms and tweezers for picking out and sorting exercises, or scissors and a selection of materials for cutting.
Pirates and treasure!
Engage children in your setting with a pirate-themed tuff tray Incorporating beautiful potion bottles to make pirate potions and grog! Digging for treasure in sand enables children to count and sort their findings. Try the TTS Metal detectors to search for hidden treasure in the sand. Encourage them to get creative by designing their own treasure maps. Combine this with dressing up and the children will have a fantastic pirate-themed learning experience!
ICT in the Tuff Spot
Why not use the tuff spot tray as a track for Glow and Go Bot, Bee-Bots, Blue-Bots, or Clever Cats – it will help to contain them whilst the children explore.
Planting seeds
Contain everything that you need for a small group of children in one tray as a group activity. Children can handle all items such as compost and seeds and even create small tags – writing the label themselves.
Tuff Tray Accessories and Mats
Inspire and engage with each of our Tuff Spot Tray Mats. Place them in your tray and stand and watch imaginations soar.
Children can add all the small world accessories they like. Watch them make towns, jungles, fairy tale landscapes, dinosaur worlds, space scenes and pirate and watery worlds.
Top Tip: Make your own Tuff Tray mats by cutting paper, card, patterned fabric or PVC table cloths to fit the shape.
Use a range of Tuff Spot stands from height adjustable stands to more robust wooden stands with either storage underneath or seating so that children can sit down around the Tuff Spot Tray.
With many thanks to Adele Crozier, a nursery manager and blogger from Playful Learners; childminder Gini Hancock, from Giraffy’s Daycare and Clare Wilson, for their imaginative contributions that are all featured in this article.
