Playing into the Future

The International Play Association (IPA) is a nongovernmental organization formed in the 1960’s whose sole aim is to ‘protect, preserve and promote the child’s right to play’, or Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The IPA believes that play is ‘vital to develop the potential of all children’. ‘Play is a means of learning to live, not a mere passing of time’.

So, last week I lived in the lovely city of Cardiff in Wales where I represented Eureka! at the IPA World Conference. Now, I’ve never really been to a conference before, not for a full week anyway, so I didn’t really know what to expect and it was all a little bit daunting. 

The conference was held in Cardiff City Hall and it was huge. There must have been about 600 people attending from all over the world who all seemed to know each other somehow, and me, in the middle, alone, not knowing what to do… yeah…


But IPA had a secret weapon for this very situation. They had free coffee (or tea) and cake, and let me tell you, coffee and cake is a great ice breaker, and even more so when it’s free :)

So I made some friends and we headed to the opening ceremony where we heard speeches from the First Minister of Wales and the IPA World President. The rest of the day, and indeed the week, were up to us. There were loads of seminars being given by play work practitioners from all over the world, some of which I’d heard of, and others that I’d not.

Children helping with demonstrations at the IPA Conference

I’d been a good boy and already decided which seminars I was going to attend before going, so another free coffee (and cake) later and I was in my first seminar. This was pretty much the pattern for the rest of the week, seminar, coffee, seminar, coffee etc… 

Now if I wanted to keep writing for ages I’d go into details on each of the seminars, who the speaker was and what point they were making and what I brought back with me to Eureka!, but that would be incredibly boring, so I’ll just kind of do a summing up of what I figured were the most important points (for me anyway) of the week.

So I guess these are the two most important things:

1.    Children need to experience risk during their play. I remember when I was a child, I was always climbing trees, making rope swings, making dens etc… I was always seeing if I could reach the next branch up, or swinging higher, and constantly pushing myself to beat what I’d achieved before. So I might have fallen once or twice but who cared, I learnt to be careful. More and more children today are losing the element of risk in their play. If there is no risk involved, then the child won’t learn what it means to take a risk, to fail, and to succeed in that risk. We can’t forever be cushioning everything. Children need to graze their knees every once in a while. We need to promote risk management, not risk aversion, and realize the benefits of risk taking.

Children climbing a tree at the IPA Conference

2.    Children need to experience nature. More and more children are not getting to experience nature. I sat in on a couple of seminars about ‘Forest Schools’. A Forest School is an area of forest where children are invited to spend one day a week exploring the forest. All with adult supervision, the children can make things using real tools, cook their own food over an open fire, explore, climb, balance and really do whatever they want to. Now, I know that not everywhere has access to a Forest School, but that doesn’t mean that we should shy away from incorporating an element of nature in to play. In my opinion, children are now being brought up in a world of plastic; action figures, video games, plastic play equipment etc… Why don’t we ditch the plastic and use some wood for a change? 

I could go on but I think you get the gist. I’ve learned much more than just this, but I can’t really blog about it all.  It would take ages. 

Anyways, on the last day we all went to a Play Festival accompanied by one of the local schools. There were tree climbing, rope swings, water fights, crafts, singing and more. 

Ben Guilfoyle is the Specialist Play Enabler

Eureka! I have found a job!

In May 2010 I had been actively seeking work for months with no luck, I came across a government programme, The Future Jobs Fund, offering paid work experience with organisations for 6months. The Future Jobs Fund was the beginning of one of the best experiences of my life. I applied for a post with Eureka! The National Children’s Museum as an Administration Assistant. I had never envisaged myself working in a business environment but the opportunity had presented itself and I decided to take it on.

If I could put into words how I feel about working for Eureka!, I would be selling Eureka! short. Working at Eureka!, has been an amazing experience which can only be described in its simplest form as breathtaking. When I started working for Eureka! I did not really know what to expect. I can safely say all my initial inhibitions were quickly displaced. As an A-level graduate with little experience in an office/business environment and feeling a little naïve, I thought I would be out of place. The reality was completely to the contrary and within a week I felt as if I had been working at Eureka!, for the greater part of the year.

Although I had joined the Marketing and Development Team at Eureka!, there was an informal environment and the atmosphere was in line with the playful ethos of the museum. Being in the Corporate Office was slightly daunting as the team is highly efficient and professional yet everyone is friendly and easy to approach, so it created a great productive atmosphere to work in. Not only am I privileged to be working with some of the brightest minds in the industry, but at the same time I’ve been inspired to go above and beyond my best. Working at Eureka! has been amazing, no one day goes by that is the same. You can be working on a corporate event with blue chip clients wanting an informal environment for some genuine team building, or doing a workshop with children excited to learn about poo. In the galleries I enjoyed seeing children’s faces light up in excitement at speaking to Scoot the Robot, and I was challenged doing research for fundraising and marketing campaigns, everyday is different and almost always exciting.

David running the Wacky Races session as part of Playday 2010

I have learnt a great deal at Eureka! over the past year from life skills to comprehensive business skills that I hope will put me in good stead for my future career. I am also currently waiting for confirmation that I have passed my NVQ Level 3 Diploma In Business and Administration.  I am more confident and my interpersonal skills have significantly improved from my time here.! From being a shy young man trying to find his career path, to being a professional orientated individual with a promising future ahead. I owe a lot to the team at Eureka! as I embark on the next stage of my life, I take on board everything I have learnt and all the experience I have gained in my role. After over a year of working at Eureka! (my contract was extended after the Future Jobs Fund placement) I am currently preparing to start work with the UN on anti-poverty initiatives and human right issues in Third World countries. As I leave I will always remember the playful ethos of Eureka! particularly the essence of play, "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

David Dube is the Administration Assistant at Eureka! The National Children's Museum and will be leaving at the end of the month to work with the UN. 

Five Practice Tasks to Help Improve Your Child’s Hand Eye Coordination

As an ex-professional tennis player, I have years of tennis playing and coaching experience. When my daughter reached two I started to recognise that games we played were not only fun but helped develop hand-eye co-ordination and many other skills. I soon realised that this was something that many other parents would appreciate and started to develop Tennis Tots.

The Tennis Tots curriculum helps improve agility, balance and coordination in young children as well as devising educational based lessons; which allow children to learn numeracy, colour recognition and language skills whilst building their confidence along the way.

Parents play a crucial role in both the introduction to sports and earlier stages of a child’s development. Children from the ages of 2-5 years can be introduced to many fun games and skills to help improve their Hand-Eye Coordination; the ability of the eyes to guide the hands in movements.

Why is it so important for your child to develop this skill?
•    In school, visual-motor integration, which is a vital skill for handwriting, grows out of a good hand-eye coordination base. The eyes need to guide the hand in forming the letter shapes and making sure they stay within the lines of the page.
•    In gross motor games, hand-eye co-ordination can help your child to catch a ball and hit a ball with a bat or racket
•    Eye tracking skills, which are vital for reading, can also develop through the gross motor games used for hand-eye coordination.
Here is a list of tennis based activities from the Tennis Tots curriculum that you can use at home with your children to help develop your child’s hand-eye coordination. All of these activities are used within the Tennis Tots programme and can benefit children from age 18 months-8 years of age in a number of ways. They are also a great chance for you to spend some fun time with your child doing something that is both active and educational.

Balloon Tap Up
Try to keep a balloon up in the air by tapping it up with both hands or by using a racket. Children can try using one hand or two hands depending on their ability and parents can tap the balloon alternately with their child to make it more fun. This exercise is great for developing each child's hand eye coordination and helps to improve tracking skills at an early age. Try to count the number of hits you get and improve on your score each day.

Catch and Bounce Catch
Practice throwing a big ball (no bigger than a football) underarm so that the children can catch it without a bounce. Try to kneel down so that you are at eye level with the children when you throw the ball. This will help the children track the flight of the ball more easily. Try to count to ten catches before progressing the exercise to throwing the ball with a bounce before catching it. Practice saying "Bounce and then Catch" so that the children get used to the rhythm of the ball bouncing and then catching it. For a more challenging exercise you can throw the ball to the right hand side and the left hand side and see if the children can move and catch the ball after one or two bounces. If the children can handle this get them to say split and do a split step before you throw the ball. This will help them be ready to receive the ball. Counting the number of catches you do allows the children to develop their numeracy skills along the way. You could count from 1-10 or count backwards from 10-1 or even start at 20 and progress from there depending on the age and developmental stage of your child.

 Fetch
Practice rolling a tennis ball through your child’s legs with them facing away from you. As soon as the ball comes into vision they chase it and pick it up with either their left hand or right hand depending on the instruction. Try progressing this exercise by asking the children to sidestep back like a crab or jump back with their feet together like a Kangaroo.

Rollerball
Sit down on the floor opposite your child with legs apart. Practice rolling a big ball (no bigger than a football) between your legs and counting the number of rolls you can do. Encourage your child to stop the ball with two hands by putting the palms of their hands on the top of the ball before pushing it back. 
For older children who find this task easy try getting them to stand on a marker and roll a ball to either their left side or right side. When the ball comes, encourage your child to move and stop the ball with either their right or left hand, depending on where the ball was rolled and then encourage them to roll it back with that hand before sidestepping back to their marker to repeat the task. This is an excellent activity to develop perception skills as well as developing hand eye coordination and balance whilst helping children learn about the left and right sides of the body.

Floor Tennis
Practice rolling a big ball with a 17 inch or a 19inch racket along the floor standing about 5 ft from each other. Encourage your child to trap the ball with the racket and then roll it back to you. Try counting to ten rolls and then start again.
For older children this exercise can be done using left and right hands and will involve more movement. Starting on a marker, try rolling the ball to either side try rolling it away from your child encouraging them to move and trap the ball with their racket either with their left or right hands. Once the ball has been trapped, children should attempt to roll the ball back from a sideways on position before recovering back to a marker with a side step. 

Try doing this exercise three times per week for five minutes each time and it will really help your child improve their hand-eye coordination skills as well as improving their overall development in a number of areas.

Matt will be at Eureka! on Sunday 12 June giving Tennis Tots half hour taster sessions. To watch a video of some of these exercises and to learn more about the Tennis Tots programme watch the video below:

Matt McTurk is the creator of Tennis Tots, an educational based Tennis Programme aimed at boys and girls from 2-5 years of age which runs across Yorkshire. For more information about the Tennis Tots programme visit our website. If you are new to Tennis Tots you can book a free trial by calling  07725339257 or email us.

We’re going on a bear hunt…we’re going to catch a big one…

We all know and love the classic ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen, which is why we chose it to be the theme of our 2011 Early Years Fiesta. The Early Years Fiesta is an event catering solely for pre-booked Early Years groups in the first week of May during SATs week. This year was such a fantastic success with record bookings, that ‘Early Years Week’ became ‘Early Years Three Weeks’. The feedback we have received so far has all been extremely positive, showing that this event was enjoyed by all.

This story, by its very nature, lends itself well to the outdoors, so we decided that it would be fantastic to make use of our newest outdoor exhibition, ‘The Wonder Walk’. Through this adventure the children were guided by two of our Eureka! explorers, where they overcame the obstacles that the story threw at them on their quest to find the Bear. We used the willow structures for the ‘long wavy grass’, water trays for the ‘splishy splashy river’, ‘icky sticky mud’, trees and branches for the ‘deep dark forest’, and artificial snow for the ‘swirling whirling snow storm’, the overall effect was fantastic!

Looking for the Bear

Even though we love the Bear Hunt story we could not resist putting our own Eureka! spin on it and so added a new magical element to the story. This was in the form of a kind Eureka! Fairy who had left some of her fairy dust for the children. The children were asked to take a pinch of this glittery dust and to think of their favourite animal, then sprinkle the dust in the air to become that animal (with their imaginations switched on of course). We had allsorts of animals emerging, turning the Eureka! park in to a unique menagerie of animals.  This ranged from bears and tigers to dinosaurs and unicorns galloping and flying around the Wonder Walk. However, this fairy dust is notorious for wearing off quickly and all too soon we were all human once again, carrying on with our journey to find the bear- who as it turned out, like everything at Eureka! was very friendly too.      

Finding the bear

The weather was not always on our side but we had a fantastic time ‘Swishy Swashing’, ‘stumble triping’ and ‘Squish Squashing’ our way through the Wonder Walk.

The Eureka! version of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ is open to the public until 3 June (tomorrow). Let us know what you thought of it and which other stories you would like us to add a bit of Eureka! magic to.

 Penny Dargan-Makin is the Early Years Specialist Enabler at Eureka!

Are the choices children make when playing nature or nurture?

Last week I was asked to speak on Radio York about whether boys and girls toys are different because of the way children want to play or the way they are nurtured. Well, my first comment was, what is a boys toy and what is a girls toy?

Having worked with young children for over 20 years and being a mother I do think there is a element of nature to the games children play but I also believe that there is a very strong influence from society.  From as young as 2 children are able to recognise differences in gender and already begin to allocate roles to those genders.

If you walk into many large toyshops and supermarkets today you will come across pink aisles/areas full of toys that enable girls to act out caring roles. Then you have the other areas with action toys and scientific equipment marketed at boys. Watch adverts on children’s TV and you’ll  see girls caring, boys being adventurous, parents  in stereotypic  gender roles. By aiming products at a specific gender they do reinforce the expected gender role, imprinting expectations of a domestic role for girls whilst their male counterparts are being equipped for much more diverse occupations. One large retailer said “When it comes to things like illustrations on product packaging, we are very much at the mercy of our suppliers” Is this acceptable or a copout?

A boy does some cooking in the Living and Working Together gallery

At Eureka!, as in all children’s museums, we  recognise the need to use the foremost years of a child’s life to set the foundations of equality and enable them to respect and value diversity. We ensure we provide positive images of people of both genders reflecting daily life, we create spaces where all children should feel welcome. 

Does it matter? The news is full of good news about how well girls are doing in education, getting more jobs in previously male dominated sectors and a recent study has revealed that when it comes to work and family, men and women are more alike than different. This finding conflicts with a widely held assumption that male identity is rooted in work whereas women place a higher priority on personal/family life. 

Nature? Nurture? It doesn’t matter? What are your thoughts? 

Rebecca Johnson is Play and Learning Director at Eureka! 

Baby-Led Weaning

When any child starts at the Nursery we take some time to talk to parents and understand the child’s habits and routines. When we spoke to Leni’s Mum on her initial pre-visit we were intrigued to hear that Leni was going through the process of Baby-Led Weaning. We had heard of the technique but had never come across anyone who actually used the method.

As this was completely different to our training and experience we were initially worried that Leni would choke but her mum re-assured us and provided literature for us to understand the process properly. The most valuable resource being Gill Rapley’s book ‘Baby-Led Weaning’. To us the theory completely makes sense - if babies are in control of what goes into their mouths they can control the volume of food in their mouths and are less likely to choke. Babies are not capable of intentionally moving food to the back of their throats until after they have developed the ability to chew and they do not develop the ability to chew, until after they have developed the ability to reach out and grab things. So by forcing food into a child’s mouth at a pace that they aren’t comfortable with, you could cause choking, which Baby-Led Weaning avoids.

Leni is given her food in a bowl, and broken into pieces, which she will either put on a spoon herself, or she will select the food with her hands and put it to her mouth. There is no need to cut pieces up too much as the bigger they are the better they are to grip.

She chooses what she will eat, decides what foods she does and doesn’t like and also decides how much she eats. Leni can’t talk yet, so she generally uses non-verbal communication to let us know when she wants more- using facial expressions, pouting, bodily actions or sometimes verbally by shouting.

Most children of Leni’s age will drink using a bottle or a non spill cup like a tippy cup, but Leni drinks her milk and water from an open top cup. She places her hands on either side and tips it up for herself, only needing help to steady the cup – which she is needing less help to do so.

Through a combination of research and trial and error Leni’s Mum was able to give us at the nursery, some great foundations to work with. At meal times Leni should be:

• Sat in an upright position
• Offered foods that stick out of her hand
• The only person who puts food in her own mouth
• In control of her eating pace- don’t hurry her
• Left to decide how much she eats- don’t force her to eat if she doesn’t want to, leave her to eat what she wants and that is enough
• Don’t leave her on her own with food
• Handed her spoon pre-loaded for her to feed herself if serving sloppy food eg soup

Through trying this process out in our setting we have a deeper insight into the process of Baby-Led Weaning. Leni enjoys all her meals and has a great appetite whilst making choices for herself, we have even tried the process with the other children, and it has had a positive impact for all concerned.

The literature that we have read suggests that overall Baby-Led Weaning children will inevitably be less picky eaters, have advanced fine motor skills and develop good table manners faster. Let us know what you think of Baby-Led Weaning by posting a comment here or pop by to our nursery open day on Saturday 21 May between 10.30 and 2.30 for a chat.

Kelly Marris, is an Early Year’s Practitioner at the Eureka! Nursery and is Head of the Baby Room

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Taking first steps into theatre with ‘From here … to there’

There is a big push now among children’s theatre companies to produce shows for the youngest of children. There is a recognition that many parents bring younger siblings along to see shows that are made for slightly older children and that their younger siblings still get an enormous amount from the experience.


So, how about making a show specifically for them, and if we do, what should an early year’s show look like? If we look to our European neighbours: Denmark, Austria, France, Italy, and Belgium to name but a few, there is a wealth of experience in theatre for early years to draw upon.

When researching ‘From here … to there’, I took part in an international exchange project with La Baracca in Italy and Toihaus in Austria. It was a great learning journey, and in many ways, ‘From here …to there’ is the outcome of that journey.
Before starting we wanted to observe young children. What interests them, how do they negotiate play, how long can they sit and watch, etc… We found, like many others, that when you get the material right they can sit and watch far longer than we may think. So many times parents have come to me afterwards and said, “I’ve never seen my 2 year old sit still for so long.” So what makes the content so relevant and engaging for young children?
There are a few things that I consider to be fundamentally important and I’ve listed them below:

• Play – a playful spirit in the performers and in the creation process helps to connect immediately with very young children.

• Games – recognisable games that young children respond to intuitively ie. Peek a boo

• Visual Language - Considering carefully the props and materials used and using them in visual and imaginative ways.

• Words: Keeping spoken language to a minimum and playing with sounds & rhythms.

• Familiar rituals/routines – Building on events that are familiar to young children, ie. brushing teeth / eating / getting dressed, and then heightening the routine to make it theatrical and for it to become something else…

• Genuine emotions: young children are motivation seekers! They want to know why we do everything we do. So there is a real need for the actors to be emotionally genuine and to respond in a true way to the events in the performance.

As part of the creation process for ‘From here…to there’, we spent two weeks researching & developing the show with children from 2 – 4 years in a nursery setting. We looked specifically at the dynamics of play and how young children move from independent play and playing alongside each other to playing which involves sharing and negotiating. For a two or three year old this tends to be full of conflict and resolution - great content to put into a theatre show! It was hugely rewarding to try out some of our ideas with children and in some cases to have them show us that we had got it wrong! Making theatre for the very young is a very humbling experience!

As a company we also encourage young children to interact with our work. After the performance there is plenty of time to get hands on. We let the children play with the boxes and materials from the show so that they can build their own towers and bridges. It gives them a chance to respond instinctively to what they have seen in the best way that children know how – through play!

The show is now touring across the UK and is coming to Eureka! this weekend, so you can see for yourselves if we have got it right, or even better bring your little ones and let them see if this theatre for early years is truly for them.



This blog is written by Natasha Holmes (Artistic Director of Tell Tale Hearts)


The photos by Gavin Joynt (children from Playmates nursery, Deighton, Huddersfield)


‘From here … to there’ – was funded by Arts Council England Lottery, Lawrence Batley Theatre and the international exchange project was co-ordinated by Earlyarts






TELL TALE HEARTS are a professional children’s theatre company who are now raising the profile of theatre for Early Years Children. They have been making theatre exclusively for children since 2004. In that time the company has toured its work internationally and become established as one of the most respected companies in the UK making work for early years.






FROM HERE TO THERE is a partnership production between the Lawrence Batley Theatre and Tell Tale Hearts, it premiered at the LBT in 2010 and now is touring nationally during 2011. Tell Tale Hearts are a resident company at the Lawrence Batley Theatre.