This is a whistle stop tour of our top 20 favourite educational resources for the early years. It is actually a blog version of the reel I created – pinned on my insta page so if you get chance to head over there you can watch the video too.
So, here goes…
Magical Mirrored trays
We love a mirror tray because they add awe and wonder into your play. This set up was to create a cascade of water so we stacked our differently-sized mirror trays in the tuff spot tray.
Bamboo chutes and mini stands
You can’t beat a water chute and the bamboo chutes and mini stands are a beautiful alternative to the horrible plastic house guttering.
Small World Houses
We love a small world set up – ideal for little and big imaginations! We particularly love these two houses – the mushroom dwelling and the forest fern from Cosy Direct. AND most recently, I have fallen in love with this wicker mushroom house from Wonder Weaver, for our Maileg mice too. How cute?!
If you could choose one of these 3…which would you choose?
Bag of Buddies and Accessories
These beautifully made bag of buddies from Learn Well Education are used often in our house. They are soft and tactile, very appealing and Finlay just loves them. We often talk about our emotions and each buddie is linked to an emotion which we can talk about together. He takes these into nursery too for his friends to explore.
Check out the great book to go alongside and other accessories in the range.
Vegetable and Fruit Stones for the mud kitchen
The Yellow Door fruit and vegetable stones are a great addition to our mud kitchen and we get so many compliments on them. We take them to forest school and we get so much play from them.
They are made from stone so are sustainable and super long-lasting. They are indented so can be pushed into playdough, can be drawn around, added to mud pies and potions and soups. Add them to sand, water, mud, in the bath, in the sink. Honestly, you won’t regret this purchase. Super easy to clean too – perfect!
Felt bags and balls
Finlay loves these beautiful and vibrant felt bags and balls from Cosy Direct – hang them from a wooden tree mug for a simple self select resource.
Great for loose parts play, counting, colour sorting and for rolling down bamboo guttering. We even add these to small worlds and they look amazing in the wooden rainbows.
Mud Kitchens
One of our most used resources, and a rather large initial outlay is the mud kitchen. We have had a few over the years and still use a variety but honestly; our favourite has to be this one by Millhouse.
An amazing runner up and much more cost effective and open ended is the nature table from Cosy Direct.
This can be used as a mud kitchen but also, not restricted to one so is a great space for invitations to play and set ups of all types.
We get a lot of our mud kitchen accessories from charity shops and car boot sales – but save some of the bargains for me!!
We also use lots of FREE natural treasures as ingredients for our mud kitchen – go on a treasure hunt in each of the seasons to collect treasures for your mud kitchen – acorns, pinecones, conkers, shells, pebbles, leaves, wildflowers. We store them in the plastic Potion Jars for self select.
Top Tip – hang cut lavender upside down with hessian string to dry out – this can then be used all year round to add colour and a beautiful
Charlotte
sensory smell to your mud kitchen. You can also do this with roses. Add the dried rose petals to jam jars and add labels for perfume making.
Tuff Spot Trays and stands
One of favourite resources that we use daily. Our trays are ALL from Cosy Direct. Our favourites being the heuristic wicker tray, the mirror tray and then the White and black mini deep trays and stands. Please see our separate blog post on tuff tray play! Check out the tuff tray play group on facebook for 1000s of AMAZING ideas and activities with the tuff tray.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/cosytrayplay
Wicker reading pod
Another Cosy delight! Since completing my Hygge in the early years accreditation we have made our home much more Hygge. I even visited Copenhagen and the Happiness Institute.
We love all things wicker and natural in our setting, although the odd plastic toy does still have its place – we can’t get away from Paw Patrol, Peppa and Thomas as much as anyone else can’t!
Playdough and rollers
Handmade play dough, either made by us or by small one off shops is a must have resource in our home. I love to support local and small businesses so we have had playdough from a few places now but by far our favourite has to be from Bees Busy Boxes Playdough. It smells divine and they sell an amazing array of boxes and kits.
Yellow Door have an amazing selection of rollers – which are perfect for playdough. From Dinosaurs to seasons, ten frames to emotions.
We always take a little set of playdough on holidays with us – a small tub of dough, some accessories – is all you need really! We often add natural treasures and holiday finds to the set as we go! We like to use a sandwich box to carry the little set in. Great in the car on long journeys and also on the plan
Please check out my Playdough and Sensory Play Facebook group for lots of our playdough activities and ideas to inspire you. We have a very kind and active following so please head over to join us.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/playdoughandsensoryplay
Rustic Oven and Giant Masher
These two from Cosy Direct are the perfect addition to any mud kitchen – mash up your potions and perfumes and natural treasures with the giant masher – and then add your makes to the rustic log oven to bake. Beautiful natural additions.
Little Looking Shapes
The beautifully made Little Looking Shapes from Learn Well are a go-to for loose parts play and make amazing viewers…they can be taken anywhere – on holidays, to the forest, the beach, a walk. Great to draw around and add to playdough activities. Quality, Long lasting resources at a great price.
Fit the pieces into the shapes, draw around them, fill them with sand, beads, buttons or squish them into play dough. The opportunities for learning through play are endless!
Alphabet Rhyme Time Collection
Did you know that Learning traditional nursery rhymes by heart supports children’s speech and language skills?
Helping us to learn our ABCs and numbers, the ability to memorise nursery rhymes and retell them in small world play is excellent for the imagination and for our little ones’ brains. Singing nursery rhymes with your child is a tradition that has been passed down for years, evoking lovely memories and happy times.
Produced by Learn Well Education, this delightfully illustrated Alphabet Rhyme Time book is bursting with inspirational ideas to enable children to learn through play. Why not add the wooden characters to enhance play? Whilst singing and story-telling, picture talk and play, small, big and even bigger play children will:
• Develop phonological awareness
• Recognise lowercase letter shapes of the alphabet
• Make physical connections with the grapheme representation with related traditional nursery rhymes to support memory recall
• Make connections with the alphabet letters and nursery rhyme songs
Wooden Crates
Perfect for display and setting up crate shelfies. Ideal for small world play and storage too. We love these wooden crates and roof top shapes. They add interest and height to tuff tray play too.
Barkless wooden blocks
We have a range of blocks but this barkless set is beautiful and fits perfectly into our natural/hygge-inspired home.
Finlay loves to stack them and make towers, lay them all out in a line, add them to small world play. I often leave them out in a basket for him to self select as and when he likes.
Miniature bricks
These tiny bricks have been so popular recently and we often get lots of comments. Perfect added to small world construction sites and are wonderful in the play sand and the magnetic sand – little ones love to create their own walls with layers of sand inbetween.
Magical felt mushrooms
Wow – what more can I say about these beautiful hand-felted mushrooms from Cosy Direct?!
They have little doors stitched in but you can turn them around if you are not keen. We love adding them to small world play, taking them to the forest and creating invitations and set ups from the magical worlds. We also recently added the felt season trees too – beautiful.
Alphabet Lozenges
These are a great addition to any set up for play and learn activities. Use them to spell out the theme of the activity, use them for learning the alphabet and letter recognition. What can you spell?
Tinker trays
We love a tinker tray! Great for adding loose parts, natural treasures, playdough invitations, collections, explore and investigate what is in the tray. Can children find their own treasures to add to the tinker tray?
Heuristic wicker tray and accessories
Another personal favourite is the heuristic wicker tray from Cosy Direct as mentioned previously – it also deserves its own spot on our top 20 list as it is just beautiful and totally hygge – it makes a perfect natural alternative to the plastic trays.
Wooden number trays
These popular wooden number trays from Learn Well get a lot of use in our home and are perfect for counting and sorting, number recognition and play.
Supporting the maths mastery approach of exploring and demonstrating using objects and numbers to enrich learning and deepen understanding.
Children will enjoy collecting and counting objects in these tactile trays. Ideal for exploring counting, number bonds and mathematical language of more than and less than.
Tracing the routed number supports early writing skills.
Jigsaws
As mentioned in a previous blog post we love jigsaws – our children and I too love a good jigsaw puzzle…purchasing many over covid, swapping with friends and family – a great mindful activity. Grab a cuppa and cake and get started! Even the husband joins in occasionally! We often take them camping too.
Jigsaw puzzles are a great tool for getting kids of all ages off their devices and to encourage family time and collaboration with family and friends. Great for developing fine motor skills and as a conversation starter by discussing the pictures on the puzzle.
Personally, we highly recommend Just Jigsaws – a family run local business in Derbyshire, again supporting local, we have been lucky enough to visit and be shown the process, meet Tony, John and the staff.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about our favoured resources and continue to follow our journey over on our social media channels. Thank you for supporting me.
Lottie Makes 
Amazing stuff and awesome ideas!
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