Insect Tuff Spot

For our Tuff Spot A-Z Challenge the letter I should stand for Illness Tuff Spot. Unfortunately Adam came down with a sickness bug so our play plans changed slightly We stuck to our original I is for Insects Tuff Spot but unfortunately we were unable to play outside and find actual insects to place into our Tuff Spot. However, we still managed to create our own pebbles Tuff Spot Mat.

I purchased 1 meter of pebbles printed PVC fabric from Dunelm and simply cut it to fit inside the Tuff Spot. There was plenty of material left for future projects. Not bad for £2.99.

To create areas for our insects to hide I placed a log from Nana’s wood, several lolly sticks and Rice Krispies re-used from a previous activity. To represent soil I painted 1KG of economy rice with brown paint using our usual zip-loc bag method.

Our Insect Tuff Spot gave us the perfect opportunity to use my recent purchases. It is hard to believe that most of these items came from the 99p Store!

1. Bug House, magnifying glass and scooper in a Bug Explorer pack from the 99p Store

2. 5 sectioned magnified container, a magnifying glass and tweezers from the 99p Store

3. Handy Scooper and Squeezy Tweezers from my Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set (affiliate link)

4. Jumbo Tweezer (affiliate link)

Despite Adam being ill I couldn’t even get the resources out onto the Tuff Spot before he managed to push his cars through the rice and started mark making with a lolly stick.

It was at this point I realised just how few plastic insects we owned. I could hear the teacher in me repeating that an insect has 6 legs and very few of our creatures did. So technically our Tuff Spot should be called a Mini-beasts, Lizards, Snakes, Frogs and Scorpion Tuff Spot. Nevertheless Adam enjoyed using the various fine motor tools to pick up the creatures and was fascinated with the magnifying glasses.