Spring has Sprung!
Stop talking, Rachel! Give me the activities!
This post is where I explain that not every week goes according to plan. Riding high off the pizazz of Saint Patrick’s Day and the fun green rice, I was very excited for this week. I loved the idea of welcoming the first day of spring, March 20th. We would talk about growth, and flowers, and then butterflies would land on her nose, and it would be magical.
And then the boxelder bugs came. When we moved into this house we discovered that a particular species of stinkbug-ish insect, called a boxelder bug, really likes the beautiful trees in our backyard. These annoying insects resemble cockroaches and would crawl under doors and through unseen cracks and just loiter on my sink! So, Monday, as I set up our activities on the entertainment center, I pushed my hair behind my ear.
Y’all.
There was an boxelder bug on my hair!
After I ran screaming into my husband’s office, leaving a bewildered baby watching Coco…I don’t know, I feel like it set the whole tone for the week. Most of our activities fell flat this week. Some were too advanced developmentally for Victoria. Others just lacked the pizazz of last week. I have to remind myself that she is still just one and a half. I have to make it interesting for her. She won’t just want to complete an activity because I made it.
So I plan to tell you honestly how it went. I do think this lesson plan is perfect if your child is over 2. Some of these activities, as I would discover, she’s just not ready for!
Supplies Needed:
- Paper towel roll
- Painter’s tape
- Several fake flowers (I bought some from the Dollar Store)
- Brown and Black poms
- Play-doh
- Cheerios
- Pipe cleaners
- Fairy wings
Total Cost: approximately $8.00, since we already had poms, pipe cleaners, and painters tape
The Plan:
Reading: Bright Baby Touch and Feel: Spring
Nursery Rhyme: Little Miss Muffet
Words: Flower
Visual Aid: Put the flower in the “vase”
Since starting my blog, I have begun to accumulate quite a collection of… “garbage”. Amazon boxes, paper towel rolls, shoe boxes. All of it sits in my office, waiting to be repurposed. That being said, I have a large tote full of paper towel rolls. Since anyone who has a toddler knows that you go through paper towels at a momentous pace. So I’ve got about two dozen to play with. I grabbed one and used painters tape to affix it to my door. I bought a 40 cent fake flower at the Dollar Store and placed it inside. When she woke up the first day, it actually was the first thing she played with. While I made breakfast she spent the entire time pulling the flower out of the “vase” and putting it back in. She would also brush the flower on her face, tickling herself and laughing. It really was a magical way to spend the morning.
Sensory Activity: Springtime Pom Box
I wanted to give Vicky a sensory bin that I didn’t have to supervise the whole time. I went through our pom collection and weeded out the really tiny ones, eliminating a choking hazard. I poured them all in and laid several fake flowers on top. I gave Vicky some toddler sized tongs and asked her to “pick the flowers”. It tied in really nicely to the vase. However, she really did delight in pouring the whole box out.
So I regrouped and grabbed a spare whisk from the kitchen and stuffed a handful inside. Boom! Fine motor activity. She worked very hard trying to free the poms from the whisk.
Gross Motor: Fly like a fairy
I struggled with finding a spring activity that was developmentally appropriate and went shopping, hoping that I would be inspired. And I was! Right before I check out, I stumbled upon a set of sparkly pink fairy wings. It was perfect for our theme. Vicky absolutely loved wearing them and when she did, we would wave our arms around pretending to be butterflies or birds.
Fine Motor: Pipe Cleaner cheerio – Grow Out Flower!
Oh my goodness, what a total bust. I saw this great idea on Pinterest to use play-doh as an anchor for a pipe cleaner. Hand the child a cheerio to push down the pipe cleaner. So I dug around our supplies for some green pipe cleaners and boom! We would grow our flowers.
Except it really didn’t work out that way. Despite scheduling the activity for after snack time, Vicky insisted on eating each and every one of the Cheerios I laid out. Mind you, this same child ignores them at breakfast time. I did attempt to show her how to do it, but she was more interested in picking the whole apparatus up by the pipe cleaner. When she started trying to break off chunks of play-doh to eat, I called it quits. I think this activity is a great jump-off for other weekly lesson plans, but I’m going to shelve it for a few months.
Stay tuned guys! Next week we will explore a favorite in our household – MUSIC!
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