Squirrel loves paint. Its bright, it gets everywhere, it feels cool and silky, and drips and slips through your fingers with oozy goodness.
Squirrel also loves food, and with our recent harvest topics in focus, we have adjusted this view of simply from the dinner plate, into our mouths, and we have gotten to the roots, pun intended, of all the exploring and sensory potential that they offer too.
We decided to enjoy a bright day with a light chill on the air in the garden, plenty of paper, plenty of paint and plenty of fruit and vegetables to explore using paint.
What i am really growing to appreciate, is how these days, if food is laid out for him in an activity, he instantly understands that there is a task at hand, and that the food is either topic or tool, and doesn’t consider putting it in his mouth at all.
Paint obviously goes in his mouth, but food? No way, man! I’m stampin’ here!
This activity was enjoyed on and off over an hour or so, between wonders around the garden, watching worms wriggle in the mud caused by last night’s rainfall, making hand prints with his painty hands on the pathway, and a couple of snacks.
He enjoyed showing Daddy his work as soon as he arrived home, and insisted daddy join in for a bit.
After lots of stamping, i asked if he had finished, to which he responded by loading all the vegetables into the the sheet covered sandpit, which was filled with rain water from the previous night.
He then spent a very happy half an hour leaning over the side and swishing them around in the water, observing the paint washing away in swirls and making the water murky.
He would collect them up, inspect them a little then one by one, toss them back in, chattering excitedly, listing their names as he went.
“Carr!… Pah-pah-toh!… Nappah!”
We left his finished work to dry for the day, then i brought it in in the evening. A few days later, we drew carefully around apples and other circles onto the paper.
We played with brown kraft paper and i cut shapes out of it and spent an evening sticking and threading it all together for him.
This was our end result; happy little apples near our apple flashcards and colouring on the display. I used half for our display, and half as our contribution to our dear friends Sukkot party.
We were invited to celebrate with them and other Jewish friends as we shared great food (i brought cookies!) and built and decorated Sukkah with lots of foliage, leaves, berries, flowers and some handmade crafts – like our paper apples!
We had a great time, witnessed the blessings and learned so much.
This post is for Unit 2, Autumn & Harvest.
Acorns & Crayons 