Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Playing with Wildflowers

(Olive's collection)

PART 1: COLLECTING
Our yard is bursting with blooms right now!  Our cherry tree is all decked out, violets have sprouted and there are plenty of dandelions.  My 3 year old thinks they are all beautiful so we went wildflower picking the other day.  I got out two big bowls and we headed outside.  We each filled our bowl with anything beautiful that we found and then compared our hauls at the end.

We spent at least an hour picking and collecting.  We'd give each other sneak peeks at our flowers, but did the collecting on our own.  The only rules were that we had to stay in our own yard, you had to be able to reach your own flowers, watch out for bees and put your flowers into the bowl so we could use them inside.  



This picture accurately describes what Fletcher thinks of grass right now.
What is this spiky stuff!?!?!




 The "beautiful yellow sunflowers" were her favorites :)


PART 2: PLAYING
I collected mostly violets and Olive's collecting was more eclectic with pine cones, dandelions, cherry blossoms, violets, pine needles, etc.  First, we each laid out our collections and presented them to the other.  It was fun to hear her describe all of the fun things she discovered in the yard.

 Then, we got busy making things.  This was her bird with a pine cone beak, tail feathers and more.

We counted, sorted, lined up the rest.

Then we built a flower house together.

We really had a great time picking wildflowers together and will be sure to do it again.  The flowers were perky and lasted great for a couple of hours.  It was so much fun to examine them up close and get our hands dirty.

MORE IDEAS FOR WILDFLOWERS:
scissor practice cutting apart the flowers to create things
wildflower soup
patterns
counting
making recipes
making shapes
spelling names with wildflower letters
compare/contrast wildflowers


What activities would you do with the wildflowers??

8 comments:

  1. This is such a great idea! There is so much to see and collect right now. Love it!

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  2. Such a clever idea friend. I have been sending the girls out to pick the heads off the dandelions... I didn't even stop to think that we could play with them too!

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  3. Love it!! What a precious idea! And I love Fletcher's reaction to the grass!

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  4. Awww you have such great ideas for playtime with your kiddos!

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  5. This looks so fun! I think even my boys would enjoy doing this, because they're always picking "flowers for mama"

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  6. Oh man, Wesley is picking all the dandelions right now. Such a fun time of year!

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  7. How fun to have all of these right in your own back yard! And to have your very own cherry tree is just awesome! I have always wanted to go do DC for the cherry trees in the spring. They are just so beautiful.

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  8. What a fun activity! "Sunflowers" are Olivia's favorite too! I love that! Things we think of as weeds, they see the beauty in! We should be more like them.

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