Herb clipping

 I needed some finely chopped rosemary for some rosemary lemon bread we were making for Monday Bread Day.  We have a rosemary bush outside, so we gathered some sprigs, then I put the littles at the table to cut up the pieces.  They really enjoyed this!  Great fine motor, practical life, and finger-strength--in a different way than cutting paper, as the bulky rosemary requires that you hold/use the scissors a bit differently.  Beck asked a few other times during the week to cut rosemary.  One of the times I gave him some fresh oregano to cut, and he loved that, too!  Of course if you don't grow rosemary or other herbs (you TOTALLY should....rosemary is the easiest ever) then you can buy them at the grocery store in the produce section.  Sidenote--it makes your kitchen and your children smell lovely! A great sensory activity, as well!

Older children could actually use a cutting board and paring knife to do this, as well.  Quinn would be ready for that at this point, but she wanted to use the scissors like her brother. :)

And a older infant/young toddler who isn't ready for scissors?  Show them how to pull off the leaves with their hands....if they happen to eat some...it will be good for them!  

Flower shop for dramatic play

To go along with our loose theme of "flowers and plants" this past month, I built Q a simple "flower shop." This is one of the first "themed" play areas I have introduced to her, so I wanted to keep it simple.

I used our art easel. I raided my craft supplies and came up with some fake flowers and greenery. I put red mums, green ferns, orange flowers and white geraniums each in a tall metal bucket that sits on the edge of the easel. (the flower can be used for sorting by type and color!!). I decorated by draping a flowery piece of fabric across the top, making a sign that says FLOWER SHOP, hanging a couple of shopping bags from a piece of bent metal hanger I taped up and stuck a flower clip onto, and used some flower art we'd made earlier in the month to decorate the board. I didn't buy a thing and all of them items are accessible by Q.
She loves to push the buckets of flowers in her shopping cart, take them out of the buckets and put them back in, ask her daddy and I what color flowers we want in the bags (and fill our orders!), and put the flowers on her little table for decorations.

When I initially set up the play space I had to spend some time playing with her and helping guide/direct her play by making some suggestions of what she might want to do with the items. For example, I said, "I want to buy some flowers! Can you put 3 red ones in a bag for me?" I also worked with her the first several times she cleaned this area up to teach her how to restore all the work back into its proper spots. These are necessary components to make play spaces successful, to keep them looking nice and appealing, and to teach the child how to play in them. Obviously older children need less guidance once they have more practice constructing their own dramatic play.

For an older child I might consider adding:
-cash register (could just be a calculator!)
-money (pennies or play money or even slips of paper)
-pad/pen to write orders on
-apron for worker to wear
-paper for receipts

They might also enjoy making the "flower shop" sign themselves! Or at least decorating it!!

The key is to be creative and find items around your home to repurpose. Don't get too complicated--leave some room to encourage imagination and remember that simple is better!

What fun can you have creating a flower shop or other themed play space for your kiddos as summer starts off???

HERE is a link to another great flower shop idea that would be great for preschoolers!

Toilet paper flower stamping

To go along with our flower study, we decided to stamp some flowers today using toilet paper tubes.

1) cut a toilet paper tube in half
2) set out two colors of paint
3) dip tube in one color of paint and stamp center of flower
4) dip tube in other color and stamp circles around the center to form petals
5) tear a strip of green paper for a stem
6) cut or tear leaves to glue onto stem

We made flowers together, then we each made our own. Hers looked nothing like a flower, but I had to remind myself....PROCESS over PRODUCT. She loved pressing the tube down to make circles and it was great wrist control practice, as you have to hold your wrist just right to get the tube flat enough to print the whole circle. FABULOUS practice for soon-to-be writers!

This activity could have so many different applications....it would be adorable to do a big sheet of tissue or craft paper to turn into wrapping paper!!

We taped our finished flowers (after I cut them out) onto the playroom wall to make a pretty garden!!

Infants--you could hold their hand and help them make the prints.
Preschoolers--what else can they create with their circles? Caterpillars? Cats? Houses? Spaceships?

Flower Shared Writing

Last week, to start our flower unit, Q and I completed a shared writing activity--a diagram of a flower. We each got a big piece of white paper and some markers. First I put a title on my paper. I read it to her and talked about the letters I was writing as I worked. "P is Papa's letter and it is also the letter for "parts."

Then we started drawing a flower. I had her watch me and then asked her to do it on her own paper. We drew petals, seeds, stem, flowers, and roots. She loved this activity and was very engaged!

We posted both up on the cabinet in the learning room. She loves using the froggy pointer (aka flyswatter) to point to the words in the title (she can point to each word as she says it) and also the parts of the flower. Sometimes I quiz her-- "Where are the roots?" or "What's this?" and sometimes she quizzes me!

This is a wonderful emergent reading and writing activity and is something that can be done on a very frequent basis with older toddlers and preschoolers!

Flower Planting

We are casually studying flowers in our learning room this month. Here is Q's favorite activity right now--flower planting.

I had Matt make this shredded brown paper last year for her to use in her sensory area just for digging and touching. This year I repurposed it! Her job is to fill the two little pots with "dirt," choose one of the plant tags to stick into the dirt and them add the flowers. She loves perusing the plant tags and choosing the one she wants.

This is a sometimes messy activity, as that shredded paper seems to multiply on the floor, but our dustbuster sucks it up marveously!

This activity encourages following multi-step procedures, practical life, fine motor, sensory awareness, and science skills.

Infants and younger toddlers can be given a tub of the shredded paper to dig in (with hands or a shovel), can be encouraged to fill a large pail with the paper, or even to transfer from one container to another (under adult supervision, of course).

Fall Gathering Collage

So simple...collect a basket of neat things on a walk outside and glue them onto a collage!

Pumpkin Life Cycle

I found lots of great options for pictures for the life cycle of a pumpkin. I printed one of my favorites out twice--colored both, glued one set on a sentence strip and left the others seperate. Makes wonderful matching work--for little ones they can look at just the picture and readers can read the words. THIS is one...not the one I used, but a good one!!

Bubble-Wrap Pumpkins

I love painting on bubble wrap, and Daddy brought Q a big piece home, so I knew we had to do a pumpkin patch out of them!
First I cut 4 different-shaped pumpkins out of the wrap.
Q and I used some of our fun paint tools (a roller and a fuzzy one) to cover the wrap in orange paint.

A couple days later we painted a sheet of newspaper brown and another one green. I wanted to recycle some paper we already had and provide another painting opportunity!

When everything dried I cut out some pumpkin leaves (after looking at their shape on the internet) and we put up a patch in our dining room window!

Plant label counting

I have been saving the little labels that come in plants to tell their care needs. I always put out some one-to-one correspondence work that involves putting one item into each compartment. I went ahead and put out all 16 labels, as Q is ready for more of a challenge now.

This also encourages environmental print and science skills as we can compare and contrast the different plants pictured in the labels.

Older children could sort the labels by type, colors, care needs, etc.

Vegetables

For Q's birthday some friends gave her a set of fruits and vegetables that come apart and then velcro back together. I put out the some of the items that we are growing in our home garden--ones that she would be familiar with. Onion, lettuce, and corn.

This brings up an important consideration when preparing materials for young children. Just because a set of learning materials or toys comes with 10 pieces doesn't mean you should put all 10 out at once! When an item is new and the child is young, I try to stick with just a few at a time. This keeps the child from being overwhelmed, eases clean-up because there are fewer items to restore, and allows the child to be more in-control of their environment. Once they have mastered the first few items, you can either add more, or switch out.

This set has about 10 more pieces that we'll save for another time.

This activity works on science skills, vocabulary (naming vegetables), fractions (each vegetable comes apart into a different number of equal pieces), and fine motor skills (putting pieces back together/taking apart).

Seed packet environmental print

This little bowl is filled with empty seed packets from different seeds we planted in our garden this year. Q likes to look for letters she knows on them, and we talk about the different flowers.

I have on my "project list" to make some little felt flowers to go inside each of them that matches the type of flower the seed packet is for.

Some are flowers, some vegetables, some groundcover.....

Garden gloves

What gardener would be complete without gloves? These are especially important to Q because she knows I always work in the yard in my gloves. This pretty pair came from the dollar store. I have also seen child-sized gloves around.

These can be used to teach left/right orientation for older kids so that they match the correct glove to the correct hand.

Flower-arranging

This is actually part of one of our wedding centerpieces. So I learned something important--don't use an old styrofoam ball or it will disintegrate all over when you touch it. :)

For this work, the child can take the flowers out and put them back into the styrofoam. They practice artistic skills, counting, and fine motor skills. Preschoolers, especially, love this activity! I always had it in my "flower shop" in my dramatic play area when we studied plants and nature.

To make this work-- get a large styrofoam ball. Cut it in half with a serrated knife. Cut artificial flowers so that the stem is about 4 inches long.

You can do all the same type of flowers or different types. You could also add in some greenery choices for older kiddos! These look so pretty when you cover the entire styrofoam piece with flowers....they'd also make a great gift for grandparents, teachers, etc.

Flower Arranging

Flower arranging is a very typical Montessori activity. This is a very basic introduction of this activity. It uses 5 identical artificial gerber daisies and a metal bucket. The goal is for Q to take them out of the bucket one by one and then replace them again. Later she will be introduced to a variety of flower types and can choose which she wants to include. An even more complex step would be to introduce the green florists' foam and let her stick the flowers in that to create an arrangement. On pretty days we like to pick wildflowers on our walks to make real arrangements for our kitchen window!!

You can begin to introduce some of the vocabulary related to flowers as you complete this work with your child...stem, petals....

Need for green....

I always incorporate some plants in my classrooms. Our learning room has a great windowsill that gets sunlight that I can't wait to cover in neat plants...once the little one grows out of eating dirt! For now we have our plants out of her reach for safety reasons. This baby pine tree has just taken residence on top of the book shelf. How can you bring plants into your home? Teaching children to care for plants is a great way to give them responsibility. A small spray bottle works fabulously for watering the plants. Even my 2-year olds took are of all the plants when I taught toddlers. Give it a try!