The recently released Primary Curriculum Framework promises an emphasis on play and playfulness. The humble Tuff Tray is a fantastic resource to help you provide multiple opportunities for play. Article by guest author, Aoife Doyle.
Play is the work of the child. In a busy school day, we can sometimes forget this!
Tuff Trays are fantastic because they are easy to clean, easy to store, they facilitate 6-8 children playing at the same time, they allow children to get messy and the children can have fun while using their imaginations.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to be super creative to make an effective Tuff Tray! The internet has thousands of cross curricular tuff tray ideas. Here are just a few tuff tray ideas that we have used recently in our school during ‘playtime’.
1. Small World Construction Play
We were discussing transport in SESE so I decided to make a simple small world construction vehicle set up. I got the road tape in Tiger. You could do a simple version with masking tape. I gathered lots of little people and vehicles from various toy sets in the classroom (Lego, train set etc). You could add some blocks and sand for a sandpit/construction site.
The children got lots of mileage (get it?!) out of this one.
2. Number Bonds to 10
We were learning about ways to make 10 in Maths. We all know that children will consolidate this at various different stages. This tough tray allowed all of the children in the class to access the content at their own individual level.
Providing various different maths manipulatives allowed children to explore number bonds to 10 in various ways. I also provided some whiteboards and markers where the children could record their number bonds.
3. Fine Motor Skills Development
We spend a lot of time in Senior Infants working on our fine motor skills to build our hand muscles for writing. Cutting is a great skill for building those muscles! This is a simple but open-ended activity which the children loved. I ended up throwing in some more googly eyes and glitter and let them run wild. They created little toilet paper monsters with funky hair. This is also a good activity for the summer term if you have stock in your art press that you need to use up.
Other ideas for fine motor skills in the tuff tray are shaving foam, playdough, threading and beads. The best thing about it is that the Tuff Tray is designed to keep everything in and minimise floor mess, win win!
4. Explore Capacity and Volume
My colleague Áine in Junior Infants was teaching all about capacity in Maths. She created this open-ended capacity discovery table. She placed porridge oats in the middle with lots of different scoops, tubs and containers. The oral language opportunities and discussions that this generated was fantastic!
5. Thematic work: Antarctica
In January, Áine was teaching the children about Antarctica. She made a beautiful Antarctic scene for the children to play with, complete with penguins and ‘snow’ (desiccated coconut).
The pictures speak for themselves on this one… so beautiful!
6. Water play – floating and sinking
This is a super activity for Summer Term. Weather permitting, you could take this activity outside!
All you need is some water (with a small bit of blue food colouring, if you wish) and some small plastic toys. You could include sea animals, boats, rocks, cups and containers. Let the children work their magic!
Not got a Tuff Tray?
Tuff Trays are available commercially for around €100. You don’t need to buy a Tuff Tray stand as they are at the perfect height for your pupils when placed on classroom tables. Hopefully I have convinced you that with a small bit of time investment at the start, you can get a lot of mileage out of Tuff Trays while also meeting multiple curriculum objectives.
Thanks to my friend Áine for sharing her classroom images!
Do feel free to let everyone know about any of your own Tuff Tray ideas in the comments.
Leave a Comment