Child Activity: Create Flower Soup
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Guest Post: Tinkerwonderplay
Summer is almost here, which means it’s the perfect time to make flower soup. To gather materials for this activity, you can go on a nature walk or hike, gather flowers, sticks, leaves and twigs. Provide a sensory bin, variety of bowls/Tupperware/pots&pans, mud kitchen, or an outdoor sensory mixing table. Ladels, utensils, whisks, strainers, & cups can be used as their tools for creating.
Making pretend soup with beautiful, colorful, diverse wild flowers is not only a great way for the children to enjoy some water play with flowers from the garden, it incorporates nature within the home or classroom.
Children are able to scoop, pour & transfer materials from the one container into another with a variety of kitchen utensils and containers. This helps encourage exploration of measuring and mixing.
Whenever water play is incorporated in play, it fosters creativity and enables children to experiment with science and math concepts. Children begin to understand and investigate with ideas such as more/less, same/different, many/few, empty/full, before/after, and greater than/less than.
Children also learn physics principles such as the effects of force (increasing the water flow through increased force); effects of gravity (water runs downhill) etc.
With all that math and science happening in an open ended way, there is plenty of language development happening too. Like when a child discusses the ingredients, how they will create their mixtures, and so forth. The social learnings from water play includes collaboration, concentration, turn-taking, problem solving, perseverance, self-regulation, & more.
Children also gain physical learning through water play, such as precision in pouring, eye-hand coordination, & other skills. Exploring water combined with nature is captivating, engaging, engrossing & absorbing to almost all children.
We hope you and your little enjoy this activity!
Tinkerwonderplay is run by Yasmeen Kamrani . Yasmeen is the Administrator of three preschools in Alameda, CA. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a focus on Human Resources & Marketing, a minor in Human Development specializing in Early Childhood Education, as well as a Master of Science in Early Childhood Education. She has 20 years of combined experience in the classroom and administration. She believes children thrive in an environment filled with intention, beauty, curiosity, and wonder. Her goal is to provide resources to empower educators, parents, and anyone for all things Early Childhood.