Earlier this month Toddler 1 has been exploring the outdoors when going on community walks and using our new playground! In the last few weeks the children have been finding some signs of spring weather! When out for walks the children spotted some purple flowers starting to grow, they saw the ducks returning to the pond for a swim, and the children found some ladybugs and caterpillars on the path and in our playground! All signs of nice spring weather fast approaching, and we could not be more excited!
As an extension of the children’s observations the children were invited to come and participate in a Spring Flower Painting activity! Each child was given their own flower cut out and got to pick a paint color of their choice. When choosing her paint colours, Clara pointed to the paints and said, “Pink! And orange please!”. Sebastian asked, “Orange and pink? Sebastian too!”. As a new painting tool to explore the children were encouraged to make their own aluminum paint stamp! Each child was given a sheet of aluminum foil, and were asked to crunch it with their hands to make a ball! Owen D started to squish the aluminum foil with his hands and said, “Squish it, squish it!”. Once the children made their foil paint stamp they were ready to dip it into the paint, and onto the flower! By the children using the foil as a paint tool, it made unique paint patterns on their flowers! Luca pointed to his flower and said, “Dots, dots on flower!”. Mason enjoyed mixing the paint around with the foil, and when he stamped it on the page he said, “Boom, boom!” This activity supported the children’s fine-motor development, as well as hand-eye coordination skills when manipulating the aluminum foil and using it as a paint stamp!
Many children in the class seemed to enjoy this activity, and the bright colorful flowers have us certainly excited to look for more signs of Spring!
