1. food and drink
2. desserts and baking

Hi
I’m really excited to be able to put this little book together and
show you all the fun I have with children from all walks of life. It’s
just a collection of some of the things I do and I hope it brings the
children you work with fun and happiness but most of all, a total
love for books!
I am an experienced Primary school teacher and have been
teaching since 1998. In 2005 I made the decision to be a full time
mum. This decision has given me a wonderful insight into how
children develop from birth. Being excited about providing
activities for my own baby led me to organising Parent and
Toddler groups in local Primary schools. I have been running
Parent and Toddler groups for seven years now. I set up my own
childcare facility in 2009 which I had to leave due to having a
daughter. I am passionate about promoting vital early language
and literacy skills through books, holistic and heuristic multisensory experiences.
a multi-sensory approach to
booksharing
Nicola Manley
Places to look...
£1 shops
end of season
sales
Mae'n bleser
mawr gennyf roi'r llyfr bach hwn atwoods
ei gilydd a
Charity
shops
packaging
dangos yr holl hwyl rwy'n ei gael gyda phlant o bob cefndir. Mae'n
Ebay
gasgliad o rai o'r pethau
rwy'nstores
eu gwneud a gobeithio
y bydd yn
scrap
beaches
rhoi hwyl a hapusrwydd i'r plant rydych yn gweithio gyda hwy, ond
Car
boot sales
Ikea
fields
yn bwysicach
na hynny,
yn meithrin cariad at lyfrau!
Jumble sales
reuse & recycle
Friends & family
supermarkets
parks
Rwy'n athrawes ysgol Gynradd brofiadol ac wedi bod yn dysgu
ers 1998. Yn 2005, penderfynais fod yn fam llawn amser.
Rhoddodd y penderfyniad hwnnw gyfle i mi gael cipolwg ar sut
Nicola Manley
What’s Inside?
•
The importance of multi-sensory experiences
•
The gifts of Booksharing
•
Some past examples
•
Play recipes
•
A-Z of Multi-Sensory resources for play
•
Places to look for stuff!
Play is best! It enables all
children to get engaged, it
can be social or
independent, repetitive,
multi-sensory and
ultimately is FUN!
Aqua Beads, acorns
Nothing but your
imagination!
baked beans, buttons, bottle tops, baby
oil, beans (dried), bicarb, bells, bread,
bubble bath, bubble solutions,
oats, oil
custard, cereal, clay, cornflour,
clouddough, cotton wool, compost,
coffee grounds, confetti, cocoa powder,
cellulose paste
pipe cleaners, pom poms, paint, pulses,
popcorn, peanut butter, porridge, PVA
glue, pasta (dried & Cooked), pebbles
dough
quick whip (angel Delight)
egg boxes
rice (coloured), raffetta
food colouring, flavourings, feathers,
foil, flour, fir cones, felt, foam, fabric
petals
shaving foam, sand, sawdust, stones,
shells, salt, soap flakes, shredded
paper, snow, soap bar, straw, sticks
glitter, gloop, gravel, glass
beads/pebbles, gravy
tapioca, tinsel, toilet roll, tissue paper,
tomatoes, tapioca pearls
hair gel, hair conditioner, herbs, horse
chestnuts
Under the covers!
ice, instant snow powder, icing sugar
vinegar
jelly
washing up liquid, wool, water,
wholemeal flour
Krispies (rice!!)
lamenta, leaves, loofah, lentils, lollipop
sticks, logs
boXes! boXes and more
boXes!
yoghurt
mushy peas, mud, mashed potatoes,
marshmallows, matchsticks
© Nicola Manley
Ice cream dough
¾ cup cheap hair conditioner
1½ cup corn flour
I buy conditioner from £1 shops
with a colour and fragrance and it
makes lovely smelling coloured
dough.
How to colour rice
Put cheap rice into a bowl – as
much as you want to use
Drops of food colouring until all
the rice is coated after stirring in.
Lay out onto a baking tray and
leave overnight to thoroughly dry.
Gloop
2 cups of corn flour
1 cup water
Food colouring (optional)
Multi-Sensory Play
We use our senses everyday to do everyday tasks so engaging more
than one sense when providing play experiences can help children
process the information needed. Using multiple senses simply enables
more cognitive connections to be made when playing. The more senses
that are used means more messages will be sent to the brain. For
example, children learning the noun ‘banana’ are much more likely to
remember it if they are able to see, touch, taste, smell, squish and peel a
banana!
Sense-tastic!
Sight is often taken for granted and although it seems obvious we can
make sure the activities and environment on offer are visually highly
stimulating.
Hearing plays a crucial role in providing holistic experiences about the
world around us that sight cannot offer alone. For example, we may know
what an animal looks like but if we hear what it sounds like we will have a
better understanding even more.
Everyone likes tasting things and children use this particular sense to
explore things that we as adults know we shouldn’t really taste! My son
ate handfuls of sand on the beach! My daughter enjoyed sucking the
rollerball paints we use sometimes and even pulled a snail from its shell
and popped it in! Needless to say they both learned that these were
things they didn’t need to taste.
My sense of smell is not very good but it is a powerful tool when providing
play experiences – certain smells trigger memories for example. I always
try to add a fragrance to the playdough I make – this is something my
daughter still puts on her edible list!
Finally, feeling and touching simply allows children to experiment and find
out for themselves encouraging their creativity particularly. The list is
endless when you start thinking about what to provide playdough, paint,
flour, custard, mashed potato, tapioca, spaghetti... different textures can
be quite daunting for some children so take small steps and don’t get
disheartened. Children need first hand experiences to be able to
conceptualise and construct their own ideas by learning through doing,
talking and listening.
© Nicola Manley
Play dough
2 cups cheap plain flour
The Gift of Book Sharing
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
•
Promotes emotional wellbeing and good health
•
Is the very beginning of a reading routine
food colouring
•
Encourages imagination, creativity, and thought provoking
few drops glycerine
•
Develops secure attachment – cuddling, closeness, security
•
Aids cognitive development
•
Widens language acquisition and development
•
Early storytelling & rhyme singing is vital to ensure children
are ‘school ready’
•
Will help embed a love for books for life
•
Its FREE if you borrow from libraries or book swap with
friends and family
•
Teaches concentration and listening skills
•
Many baby and toddler books have flaps and textures,
which develop coordination and manipulation skills as well
as encouraging babies to be inquisitive and explore.
•
All family members can be involved
•
Can be an activity anywhere & anytime – I have baskets of
books in every room even on the stairs.
1 ½ cups boiling water
Method:
Mix all the dry ingredients and oil in a bowl
Add the boiling water stirring until it combines together and becomes
sticky
Add the food colouring and glycerine
Allow it to cool down a little, then knead really well this makes it a really
good smooth stretchy play dough!
Add a little more flour if still sticky after kneading
Cloud Dough
7 cups any cheap flour
1 cup cheap vegetable oil
Glitter if you want
Powder paint to colour
Simply mix in a bowl until all the
oil is mixed evenly through.
Keep in a lidded box and it
should last for months.
© Nicola Manley
Recipes
The Gruffalo
Homemade coloured
moon sand
A modern tale - mask making, gruffalo playdough, small world toys and
puppets, a ‘walk through the woods’ fir cones, soil, leaves and logs.
Mopani wood is curvy and interesting. A mouse saw a nut and the nut
looked good!! Felt story telling board.
4 cups play sand
2 cup corn flour
1 cup water
2 tbsp powder paint
lots and lots of glitter
Snow Dough
2 cups corn flour
½ cup vegetable oil
3/4 tablespoons silver
glitter
© Nicola Manley
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Reading ‘cocoon’, coffee grounds to represent earth and plastic bugs,
playdough mats made from laminated wrapping paper. Coloured rice,
fabric petals, pom poms, items from story for retelling. Tapioca as
caterpillars’ eggs. Snack time was a Hungry Caterpillar buffet as told in
story.
Elmer
My daughter’s been learning names of colours and loved her Elmer
soft toy and suitcase. One day I made a multi-sensory box for her to
discover. It was a mixture of squares of paper, beads, feathers, pom
poms, jewellery and sequins. She hung her necklaces on Elmer and
we started sorting colours in trays.We also used a milk carton I had cut
up to make an Elmer.
© Nicola Manley
Off to the Arctic - Pingu and friends
Ice play - water frozen in different containers with animals. Shaving foam, blue salt
and packaging peanuts. Small world play -igloos, animals, and fabrics. Reading igloo
- lots of different books with hats and scarves to wear. Cuddly toys -a quiet cuddly
place to share a book
The Tiger who Came to Tea
We made paper tigers with our parents/carers. Plastic tigers and kitchen items with
water as the tiger drank all the water! We made a tea for the tiger. Role play is great
for language development too.
© Nicola Manley
Black sparkly play dough and metal
objects for exploration, tinned beans and
spaghetti with creatures, natural treasure
basket, using a cardboard box to make a
safari small world with natural objects.
Lastly, I made some sensory eggs - filled
with things to make different sounds.
© Nicola Manley