For the past year or so, I've been hosting a free toddler class (lovingly named "toddler music fun" because I wasn't sure what to call it) where we gather together with our kiddos (mommy and me style!) to sing songs, dance and do little activities together. Early childhood learning has always been a passion of mine - I always said that if I had not pursued nursing as a career, I probably would have wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. Even before I had kids, I envisioned myself doing crafts and setting up fun activities for my kids and their friends, going through the alphabet or the different colors of the rainbow.. etc. So in a way, this has been a sweet way of me living out this dream! Once Asher entered the thick of his toddlerhood, I began to see the many opportunities I had to engage with him through song, play, art and just teaching him/learning with him!
I wanted to put him in classes but realized that a lot of what these classes offered were things I could easily do with him - so in hopes to save some $ and also serve my friends/the moms at our church, I decided to start this class! we usually meet indoors, but I have been growing in my love for playing outdoors (thanks to tinkergarten!!) During the summer, I brought our class outside so that we could do a fun and interactive activity. I remember reading this book about stone soup in kindergarten, so I adapted a tinkergarten activity to fit the age of our group and it was such a fun time together!
After reading the book, we did a nature walk to gather ingredients for our soup!
Then we added it to a big pot, imagining that the sticks and rocks and leaves we collected were ingredients from our book: onions, carrots, beef bones etc.
I had the mamas bring veggie scraps that they had at home so that the little ones could practice their fine motor skills by cutting some real vegetables with plastic knives. (I couldn't believe how many veggie scraps we had!)
One by one, the kids brought their cut vegetables to add to our big pot.
Next up: the water! Each of the kids had tiny buckets to draw water with and added it to our big pot of "soup".
Here we learn and practice hand eye coordination, concentration and taking turns!
Lastly the spices! I brought different dried herbs for them to smell and add to the pot. (sensory!)
After all the ingredients went in, we needed to wait for our soup to "cook" so we came to the grass for some music time and bubbles!
One of the moms had the awesome idea to make an actual soup for the kids to enjoy after the activity and graciously offered to make it (thanks, Loro!!!). So after our music time, we gathered around to see that our stone soup finished "cooking" and was ready for us to eat! The kids were so excited to taste the soup that they "made" and gobbled up all that veggie goodness (well, most of them anyway!) - it was awesome!
It was such a fun time to play, create and imagine together. I can't wait to have more of these playdates and to spend more days outside- esp as the weather cools down!
Happy November!
(thanks CJ for these awesome pics!)
