Planting a Rainbow
We started off our week reading Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert. Just like Growing Vegetable Soup (which we read during farm week), this book was full of bold and bright illustration and simple writing. It was a great way to discuss colors, plant parts, and the way plants grow. Read below to learn about the activities we did to accompany this book!
Flower Painting
Crafts are hit or miss with my 17 month old. I continue to try them in an attempt to offer new experiences to him, but I have come to not expect much. This craft inspired by Learning4Kids, however, was a big hit! Some older children participated as well, and all of them really enjoyed it!
I prepared a muffin/cupcake tin with some cupcake liners and filled the bottom of each liner with a bit of paint. I then placed a flower (I used pom daisies), petal side down, in the paint.
I prepared a muffin/cupcake tin with some cupcake liners and filled the bottom of each liner with a bit of paint. I then placed a flower (I used pom daisies), petal side down, in the paint.
I laid down a table cloth and gave each child a piece of paper, then let them go to work picking up the flowers by their stems and using them sort of like a stamp to make neat patterns on the paper with lots of different colors of paint. Even my toddler, the youngest of the bunch, understood the process very quickly and had fun blotting the paint covered flowers on the paper.
The end results were some really cool paintings! Some had very clear flower patterns, while others looked like splatters on a Jackson Pollock. But they were all really fun and colorful - the perfect activity to accompany Planting a Rainbow.
Garden Sensory Bin and Sensory Bottle
While it wasn't tied to Planting a Rainbow, per se, we also did some sensory activities along with our flower painting.
First, I prepared a sensory bottle with some inspiration from Kids Craft Room and Teaching Mama. I used an empty lemonade bottle and added some silk flowers and flower beads, followed by water. I taped up the top with some white duct tape and the kids all had fun rolling it and tipping it, looking for colors and talking about what floated and what sunk. I think this will be handy to have around all week and something neat to catch T's attention.
I also prepared a garden inspired sensory bin for T to play with outside. I put in some potting soil, rocks, cut fresh flowers, and his gardening spade and rake. He enjoyed digging around to find rocks, scooping with the spade, and pouring the soil on himself! We talked about how the rocks and flowers felt, using descriptive words like hard, cold, smooth, soft, and bumpy.
First, I prepared a sensory bottle with some inspiration from Kids Craft Room and Teaching Mama. I used an empty lemonade bottle and added some silk flowers and flower beads, followed by water. I taped up the top with some white duct tape and the kids all had fun rolling it and tipping it, looking for colors and talking about what floated and what sunk. I think this will be handy to have around all week and something neat to catch T's attention.
I also prepared a garden inspired sensory bin for T to play with outside. I put in some potting soil, rocks, cut fresh flowers, and his gardening spade and rake. He enjoyed digging around to find rocks, scooping with the spade, and pouring the soil on himself! We talked about how the rocks and flowers felt, using descriptive words like hard, cold, smooth, soft, and bumpy.