Theme: Fruit
Honey Pot is 2 years and 2 months old
This week our local story-time group read books about fruit.
Since my planned theme was already pushed off till next week due to the virtual
book club (see the fun we had with that over here!) I decided to make a small
theme of this.
Blindfolded Exploration
I grabbed a (clean) burp cloth from Little M&M’s closet
and used it as a blindfold for Honey Pot.
Then I collected three different fruits that we had on hand,
and let her identify them by touch. She didn’t want to keep the blindfold on
for long, but she did well with this activity while it lasted.
Apples and Bananas – Song and Snack
We sang an old favorite together – Apples and Bananas.
I am not sure of the original vocalist, but ever since Honey Pot was born,
we’ve enjoyed the version by Raffi. I love how Honey Pot keeps trudging through
a song even when she doesn’t know the words! After we sang through the song, we
split an apple and banana for her morning snack. Yum!
Play Dough – Slicing Practice
I made some fruit out of Honey Pot’s play dough. Erm...obviously not drawn to scale. (Again,
find the recipe we used here! We love it!)
Then I gave her a plastic knife, and let her practice
cutting up her fruit. She really enjoyed doing this and, for her first time, she actually did quite well!
Dramatic Play – Shopping for Fruit
I had purchased a money set from the Dollar Tree months ago,
intending to use the coins for our St. Patrick’s Day theme (which was a bust
actually because, well, I had a baby that week instead). I’m glad it came with
dollars too, as it made this game so much more fun (and educational).
First I collected all of the fruits from Honey Pot’s kitchen set, and placed
the dollar bills in her purse.
Honey Pot then went shopping!
I played the part of the cashier. Once I emptied out her
bag, we counted how many pieces of fruit she had.
Then she counted out that
number of dollar bills to pay me with. It was a great way to sneak in some
counting practice!
Here she is putting the leftover money back into her purse.
And this was such fun - we did this a few times.
“Bye, I’m going shopping!” she kept saying, as she strutted
around the house.
Coin Art
After doing an online search for fruit themed activities, I
came across this fun one from Gummy Lump. I suppose it could be altered for any
number of themes, but it happened to suit ours just fine. To make it easiest, I
stuck the coins onto a piece of contact paper so they wouldn’t budge.
Then I covered it with a sheet of paper, and showed Honey
Pot how to make rubbings.
For the blueberries, I asked her to help me place them onto
the contact paper in random order.
Here is the final product!
And then she asked if she could put the coins in her piggy
bank. Well, for putting up with all of my extra tot school shenanigans, of course
you can, my dear.
Coloring Page
There is a site called Super Coloring that has a wonderful selection of coloring pages that look like famous paintings. So I chose one with fruit in it for Honey Pot to use those crayons a little more. It is called "Still Life With Jug and Drapery" by Paul Cézanne. Here is the original painting:
And here is Honey Pot's version:
Blueberry Picking
And what fruit theme is complete without a trip to the
berry farm to do some blueberry picking?
"Mmm, nummy!"
