A treasure box of circles

I started introducing Luath to treasure baskets when she was around six months.  Our treasure basket items and times we use it has been quite haphazard.  Some weeks we use it often, others not once.  Sometimes the contents never make it back into the basket.  Some weeks even the basket is used for another purpose.

The other evening I took out the shoebox (the basket being used to home her creatures for these weeks theme) and discovered that all the items left in the box were either round or featured circles.  The next morning while making breakfast and Luath impatiently waiting for our porridge to cool, I remembered our box of circles and thought I'd have a quick grab of anything else I could find in the kitchen to make up a box of circles to keep Luath busy until we ate.

I found a few things...

OK, I found loads of things!  Looking around our home and garden I realised our world is full of circles.  A box of another shape would be a bit harder to pull together so quickly.

Not everything in the box fitted the natural object category (often mentioned in the same breath as treasure baskets), but they were all worthy of investigation.  Different sizes, shapes, textures, temperatures, weights, sounds, uses....  She forgot about her hungry tummy and dived into the circle of circles.

I am sure the circle theme passed her by, but she played with this after breakfast and again in the afternoon. She especially loved banging two metal bowls together. I plan to keep the box ready to bring out for another day or two, depending on her interest level, then I guess I will have some washing up to do before everything is returned to it's kitchen home.

The Sunderland child centre has a great document on treasure baskets  They also have documents on messy play, play dough recipes, finger plays and rhymes, helping your child to read