03/10/2026
At Beenham Preschool we talk a lot about “following the children’s interests”. Here is a pretty perfect example of what that means …..
I put out some whisks and cold custard because I wanted the children to use their arms, wrists and fingers and also to notice the effect of the whisks on the custard.
They enjoyed the whisks and commented that it made bubbles but they popped too quickly so I gave them some water and washing up liquid. One of them noticed how many bubbles they could make and the water went white.
The next day a different child worked out that the egg whisks could be used as bubble wands and he learnt how to blow enormous bubbles and shared how to do this with his friends .
Lots of other children noticed and all came to join in and chase the bubbles. We heard some lovely vocabulary about bubbles and saw children sharing interests.
One of the children remembered that we had a story sack about a frog called Bert who has a bubble which keeps popping.
We read the story and looked at the story sack and then we put frogs in our tray so we could tell the story and make up our own.
One child made up a song about frogs and bubbles so we tried to think of any songs we knew about frogs. We sang "5 Little Speckled Frogs".
We added a log to our tray and even more frogs so then the children were singing and counting frogs.
When I first put out my custard powder I did not anticipate ending up with a frog in a bubble !
In letting children guide their own learning we are teaching them to be the imaginative and creative thinkers of the future but also to know that their ideas are heard and are very valuable.
Love my job :-)
Paula (Manager) xx
