Training banner

Creative Courses

Playtrain courses can be adapted and tailor made to meet your specific requirements.   All of our courses can be adapted according to the age of children and young people that you work with.

Playtrain courses aim to promote the need for children’s creative expression and to enable adults who work with children and young people to develop the skills and awareness to facilitate that expression.

Playtrain regularly runs the following courses as part of our training provision.

Dance and Movement

This course will provide creative ideas, movement games and tips on how to encourage movement within an early year’s setting. There will be opportunities to explore movement using music, props, narrative and role play to help encourage and foster enjoyable healthy activity in your setting.  The session will look at how we can value children’s natural and spontaneous inclinations to move. It will explore developmental movement through floor based play and consider ways to encourage more child-led, whole bodied movement opportunities. This course can be adapted to your needs to include elements such as yoga or cross-cultural dance and for different ages and abilities.

“This has given me good ideas and the confidence to use them.”
(Dance & Movement for Young Children, December 2007)

Yoga Dance

This demonstrates how traditional yoga postures, breathing exercises and relaxation techniques can be delivered through a creative story based approach. At the same time it teaches children about their bodies,  enhances self confidence and encourages a calmness of mind - An essential life skill!

Mini-Movers: Exploring movement play with babies.

Playtrain offers a special training course in movement play for Early Years professionals who work with babies aged 6 weeks -18 months. This explores best practice in child-led movement activities using props, songs and music to encourage babies to move and express themselves. The course reflects on how movement activities can be used for communication and expression and also looks at ways to build these activities into your own setting.

Inclusive Games

Games are an essential part of team building, they can help to liven a quiet group and calm down a lively group; they help people to feel at ease and to get to know each other; they can get the blood flowing and the brain cells ticking. This training will be packed with games for every occasion and setting including: concentration games, quizzical games, energetic games, word games, singing games, name games, storytelling games, drama games and more…

Visual Arts

This course will look at how child-centred visual arts can provide opportunities for children to express their individuality, explore their creative potential and have fun!  Participants can explore a range of hands on arts activities using 2D and 3D techniques that experiment with a range of materials and stimulate imagination. This course is suitable for practitioners responsible for planning creative activities and for arts workers who wish to develop their work with early years. Courses can be tailored made to suit the needs of your setting, or you can choose to explore a specialist activity area:

101 Things to do with a Cardboard Box
This day provides plenty of engagement activities designed to explore the many opportunities for creative play using a cardboard box - cheap and yet priceless!

Big It Up Making Day
Find out how to make large scale structures and create different play environments using cheap everyday materials—this day provides activities and advice for ‘bigging it up’ in your setting - be prepared to get messy and have lots of fun!

Using Recycled Materials
Children of all ages enjoy creative arts activities, but the cost of art materials can often be a barrier. With a little imagination, everyday items from your kitchen cupboards and garden shed can be recycled to create works of art and fun activities.

“The training was wonderful, varied interesting and fun….stimulating, motivating and real”
(Visual Arts in Play course participant 2008)

The Great Outdoors

This course will explore practical games, constructions and creative activities which encourage outdoor play. Participants will use the four elements as inspiration for outdoor play and use natural materials to create individual art.

“This was amazing. It was easy to ask questions and I gained so many ideas – I will certainly be trying these out!”
(Wild at Art, 27 June 2008)

Playing With Sound

This workshop will give people a gradual introduction to using instruments and songs. We look at games that use sound, but no instruments, and bring in simple instruments in a way that can be used directly with children. Participants will explore rhythms and games which use the instruments and enable them to become more confident in using them. You do not need to be a musician to take part in this course!

Drama & Imaginative Play

Learn drama and role play techniques, which will help you to enable children to explore and develop their creativity and imagination. Participants will experience new games, which encourage confidence and participation, while introducing techniques to create and explore characters, objects and places…but you will not have to perform on your own in front of the group!! This practical training course promises to be full of fun, variety and inspiration

Practical Puppets

On this fun practical course you will create your own puppets, from inexpensive and scrap materials, then bring them to life and put on a simple puppet performance. Types of puppets covered on the course may include: glove/ string/ stick/ large processional/ shadow puppets.
Digital Play

Make the most of your digital equipment and learn some very simple yet effective ways to unlock the creative potential of new media with children and young people. This training session will give new ideas, techniques and hot tips on how to use, even the most basic, equipment such as computer technology and digital cameras to explore photography, film, editing, animation and graphic art.

Creative Group

Work A fun, practical course all about working creatively within a group. This training will explore a range of activities in visual arts, drama and games that encourage and develop group cohesion.  The aim is to promote the benefits of team work and look at ways of helping children and young people to develop social skills; exchange ideas and opinions; engender notions of respect and sharing and reap the benefits and fun that can be had by being an active member of a group.