Creative

Festive tinker tray

by Fellowship Agency December 11, 2018

This festive inspired tinker tray is the perfect activity to get your early years students exploring textures and practicing their fine motor skills.

Learning outcomes

You will be able to:

  • explore different textures
  • develop fine motor skills
  • sort objects by colour

You will need (per group)

  • 1 x Shallow (F1) Gratnells tray
  • Baubles
  • Bottle tops
  • Cotton wool balls
  • Bells
  • Present bows
  • Tinsel
  • Coloured pom poms
  • Pipe cleaners
  • Festive ornaments
  • Tweezers (optional)

What to do:

  • First, collect all the resources as mentioned above.
  • Allow children to explore the different objects within the tray.
  • Think about discussing texture, colour and material type with the children.
  • Get the children to sort the objects into different groups.

Other things to try…

  • Cover the tray so that the children can’t see the objects and get them to describe what they can feel.
  • Share photographs of your Christmas fun on social media using #WhatsInMyTray

Curriculum links:

EYFS- Development Matters- Mathematics: Numbers- Begin to organise and categorise objects

EYFS- Development Matters- Mathematics: Numbers– Provide collections of interesting things for children to sort in their play.

Key Stage 1– Primary National Curriculum- Science– To distinguish between an object and the material from which it is made.

Key Stage 1– Primary National Curriculum- Science– To compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of their simple physical properties.

Health & Safety

As with all Gratnells Learning Rooms What’s In My Tray Activities, you should carry out your own risk assessment prior to undertaking any of the activities or demonstrations.