As part of the Five Senses Play Challenge we have asked some non-bloggers to share an activity with our readers. I have been lucky to get to know Haley throughout the 31 Day Sensory Play Challenge and she came up with some amazing activities. For the sense of touch week she has been creating modern fossils:
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Today we ventured outside into the woods to take prints of the pine trees and other natural materials we could find. After looking around, my niece (G) decided that the trees were a good place to start as the bark looked ‘all bumpy’.
It seemed easy at first but when we tried to push the dough into the bark, we found that it cracked around the bark and that could prove detrimental to the state of the dough after baking, especially in it weakest places. We persevered and found a printing that we liked.
My daughter (A), chose to print with a pine cone, that left a much more clear impression in the dough.
She found it easier than G did as she could put weight on the pine cone, rather than the dough. After our printing adventure, we boxed them up for safety and played around the trees for a bit, picking up sticks and pine cones for our fire back home. This provided an opportunity to talk about the activity. As before, G commented that the trees were bumpy and they looked very old. I mentioned that a lot of big trees probably are very old as it takes a long time for them to get as big as they are. These trees are around 80 years old. We had picked up more pine cones and decided to take them home with us. We talked about how they felt and what the printing looked like. I told them that in a few months, the cones will have opened and won’t look like they do now and we hope to come back then and take more printings to see the difference.
We had lots of fun during this activity, despite it being cold. The children ran in between the trees and chose their own materials for printing. Below is the baked article.
Unfortunately the other one didn’t survive due to the cracks making the middle so thin. I was happy with the way the pine cone turned out and I am now unsure as to whether we should paint it or leave it natural. It makes a good addition to the treasure basket and has sparked up future plans to visit again and improve our technique.
Equipment:
* Salt dough – 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt and 1 cup water.
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This guest post is part of our Five Senses Play Challenge, for the sense of touch. Click here for more touch activity inspiration.
To read more about our Five Senses Play Challenge click here.
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