Messy Kids: flower

Showing posts with label flower. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Spring Play Dough: An Invitation to Play

*This post contains affiliate links

Play dough is a staple amongst ECE educators. It's a great tool for imaginary play, exploration, and helps to build-up the fine motor skills needed for writing. It's also cheap to make. I often use this no cook recipe from The Imagination Tree. It's what I used in the picture below. I added yellow food coloring and green glitter to make it "springy."

The dollar store is a handy resource for cheap exploratory supplies. If you are like me, and don't go often, Amazon is fantastic too (not to mention it'll be delivered right to your doorstep). When I go to the dollar store, it takes me forever because I'm hunting for anything I can use for art and sensory activities. It's amazing what you can find, especially amongst the seasonal items. And the containers! So many cute ways to present invitations to play/explore as well as for storing said objects.

For this particular invite, I set out the homemade play dough, sparkly Mini Styrofoam Eggs, silk flowers, and plastic butterflies. The other play dough tools are all on a low shelf for easy access.

This particular spring themed invitation allows a child to explore concepts of spring: plants/gardening, new life, insects (life cycle), and Easter (if one chooses). This activity allows for independent play and free exploration of materials.

You may be asking, "what is an invitation to play?" and that would be a great question. For an awesome tutorial, check out Creating the Invitation to Play on Teach Preschool and Creating Invitations to Play! on The Imagination Tree.

If you wish to expand this activity through reading, you might try:

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Flower Power on It's Playtime

Flowers, flowers everywhere! Here are some great posts from last weeks It's Playtime link party.

Join Craft to Art and the 100 Days of Play challenge with this wonderful recycle post featuring a Magnetic Bottle Caps flower game plus several other creative play ideas.

The Pleasantest Thing shared their Sensory Spring Water Table and dandelion boats. A great activity for those warm spring and summer days!

Also check out:

Preschool Botany Lesson Pt. 1 from Gift of Curiosity
Pipe Cleaner/Fuzzy Stick Flowers from Craft to Art
A Flower & Butterfly....Handprint Style From Wine to Whine
Make a Flower Chain Crown from Fireflies and Mud Pies

If you were featured this week, don't forget to grab your special "featured button."

These activities plus more can be found over on the It's Playtime Pinterest Board. Happy Pinning!

Now, on to this weeks play date!
It's Playtime is a community and Thursday link-up hosted by:

* Rachele : Messy Kids (That's me!)
* Rachel & Holly : Quirky Momma
* Jillian: A Mom With a Lesson Plan

How to Play :

* Link up a post about a playful learning experience enjoyed by kids.

* Give us love and pop a button into your post/blog. Invite your readers to the weekly play date!

* Stop by one of our blogs every Thursday and add your link about play. Your link will show up on each of the blogs in the It's Playtime community.

* Each week the playtime hosts will choose favorite posts to feature. (By linking you are giving us permission to use an image and link to you, if featured.)

* Be sure to visit some of the links that catch your eye. Commenting on posts that you find interesting or inspiring is a wonderful way to develop your own playful community.

By linking up you give us permission to grab a picture and feature you here, on a site we write for, on FB or Pinterest. If we share your link, we will always credit you, send people to your original post and use only ONE photo.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Playing with Nature on It's Playtime

Although the weather has been wacky EVERYWHERE, for most it's a great time of year to get outside and explore nature. This week on It's Playtime I'm featuring two ways to include nature in your play and learning time.

Kids pick flowers. It is what it is, it'll never go away, deal with it. Of course we don't want them rummaging around the neighbors flower beds but there are plenty of wild flowers to go around, especially those pesky dandelions. What do you do with them after they've been shared with you? Throw them? Stick them in your hair smearing dandelion goo all over (I've had to explain this to my son who insistis every flower he picks should go in my hair). Attempt to keep them in a vase? There's never a vase small enough....until now. The genius PlayDrMom shared how she created the perfect Upcycled Dandelion Vase to hold her child's treasured flowers. It's easy and it's recycling! DO IT!

Do you have kids who love to cut EVERYTHING? Do you have a lawn? Check out how Raise a Boy uses Cutting Grass to develop fine motor skills. Even if you don't have a lawn, it's easy to plant grass seeds; bring some nature indoors. Your child will love this activity whether they are toddlers just learning to use scissors or 5 year olds practicing for Kindergarten.