Fine Motor
SciencePreschoolers26 Comments
Fine motor activity with dandelions!
On Mother’s Day, we headed outside to pick dandelions at my mom’s house and collected them in a basket. Not doing anything in particular with them.
Later that week, we went outside and did the same thing again at home.
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Henry thoroughly enjoys picking dandelions.
He gets excited when he finds them. He says they’re pretty.
Henry has always loved these yellow flowers.
I think most children do.
Maybe its because they’re allowed to pick them at their own free will.
Henry collected the dandelions in a green basket, and about filled it completely!
Once the front yard was free of dandelions, we set out to do something with these weedy flowers.
The basket of dandelions got dumped out on the sidewalk.
The basket was turned over.
The dandelions with stems attached were poked through the wire basket.
And the flowers were hauled with Henry’s end loader (of course).
There was one dandelion with an extremely long stem.
This one proved to be tricky.
Henry found the longer stems were harder to thread through the basket.
Once the top of the basket was covered in dandelions, we started on the sides.
Henry didn’t find this part as interesting and he thought the dandelion hat was complete.
Though when I picked it up to put it on him, this is what we found:
Henry wouldn’t let me set it on his head, he made me wear the hat instead.
(Sorry, no pictures of that!)
Here are a couple other things to do with dandelions:
- Dandelion Cupcakes and Goop by The Imagination Tree (find another version of this at The Chocolate Muffin Tree)
- Paint with Dandelions by little learners lounge
- Make a Dandelion Crown by 4 kids, 2 guinea pigs, one happy family
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Why is it that whenever I want to do something with dandelions, I can never seem to find any?!! lol
I commented on this post before, I know, but I just wanted to say thanks for linking it up to our Outdoor Play linky! Still love it :)
For another fun idea of what to do with dandelions, try making dandelion curls
http://havingfunathomeblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/dandelion-curls.html
Thanks so much for sharing! My 2-yr-old, Noah, is exactly like Henry in his dandelion obsession! He picks every one he sees; one time he filled the whole trunk of his tricycle with them and I forgot and they turned into a huge moldy mountain…ick! Thanks for the great idea, Noah would looooove to try it and it'll keep him occupied for awhile. ;)
Amy
http://oneartmama.blogspot.com
Great outdoor hand-eye coordination practice!
My girls *love* dandelions too. They thread them together like a daisy chain to make a crown. Another thing we've done with the seed heads is blow them onto glue spread on a 'd is for dandelion' shape.
This is great. We love to simply blew them once they turn white! :)
Very cute. I think it is wonderful to turn simple ideas into learning ideas.
Fun dandelion activities! We attempted to make a syrup from the 5 Orange Potatoes blog a few years ago. We made the dandelion cookies too but wouldn't really recommend them either. :) Fun!
http://shareandremember.blogspot.com/2009/05/dandelions.html
Hmmm, if my husband would let dandelions grow in his yard maybe we could do this. WE'll have to go pick them out of the neighbors yards. ;)
Really love this idea! All our dandelions are puffs now, but we could still do something like this with all of them! You are so Creative!
What a sweet, child-initiated outdoor play activity! Love to see how they explore and learn on their own like that!
Have you ever made dandelion spirals? My mom taught me how when I was little and my kids love this water/dandelion activity. Here's a link to our post from last year:
http://www.brimfulcuriosities.com/2010/04/wordless-wednesday-dandelion-spirals.html
So cool, Jamie! And look at all those dandelions!!! This reminds me of an activity we did with pipe cleaners and a colander, but I like it with the dandelions SO much better.
Thank you for the idea!! I was thinking ‘I don’t have a basket like that. What will I use?…’ Then I saw your comment and boom!!
Very cute! We did a dandelion post last week as well! We're waiting for some that we pressed to be flat. Then I have no idea what we're going to do with them. Umm. . we really need to see the dandelion hat picture! LOL Have a great Monday!