Whenever you get flowers, always save them when they are almost on their way out for children to explore. We used some old Valentine's Day Flower bouquets and got the last use out of them with this invitation to create love flower soup! In two big sensory bins, we provided a variety of containers filled with water and flowers, measuring cups, ladles, spoons, Colorations Liquid Water in Pink & Metallic Bio Color Paint in Gold.
We invited the children to create and make pretend soup with all the beautiful and colorful flowers. Not only is this a great way for the children to enjoy some water play, it incorporates the exploration of nature and science.
The children were able to scoop, pour, transfer, materials from the one container into another with a variety of kitchen utensils & containers. The assorted containers & kitchen utensils help encourage exploration of measuring & mixing. Whenever water play is incorporated in an invitation it fosters creativity & enables children to experiment with science & math concepts. Children begin to understand & investigate with ideas such as more/less, same/different, many/few, empty/full, before/after, 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 & science happening in an open ended way there is plenty of language development when a child discusses the ingredients, how they will create their mixtures, & so forth. The social learnings from water play include 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.
Here are two other ways to get the last use of flowers through freezing them! Geometric Heart STEM Exploration Two Ways and Invitation to Explore Frozen Flowers on the Light Table.