We spend two days a week at Nana’s house when my niece Beth is there. The two cousins love the garden and I have lost count the number of laps we do around the house. This post has two fine motor activities with objects found in Nana’s orchard and vegetable patch.
Apple Drop
Adam spends a lot of time manoeuvring his Little Tikes car around Nana’s orchard. He spotted some small apples that had fallen to the floor and brought a hand full of them over to Nana. So Nana found two buckets that Adam and Beth could use to collect the rest. Beth enjoyed looking for the fallen apples and loved crawling under the trees to collect then. Adam, on the other hand, could not be distracted from his Little Tikes car and was more interested in rolling over the apples.
Whilst Beth was apple collecting, Nana realised her outdoor terracotta candle holder had holes in it that were a perfect size for the small apples. She set the candle holder onto the decking and demonstrated to Adam how he could post the apples through the holes.
At first Adam picked up an apple that was slightly too big for the hole he was attempting. I had expected him to give up after he had tried to put the same apple through several holes. Instead Adam stopped and looked at the candle holder in different directions. He discovered that the hole at the top was slightly larger and the apple could fit.
From then onwards any of the larger apples went through the hole at the top and any smaller apples went through the other holes. He even tipped the apples out of the bucket to sort which ones would fit easily.
Spacial awareness, sorting and fine motor skills in action!
Equipment for apple drop:
* Apples fallen from a tree
* Terracotta candle holder
Shelling Broad Beans
Nana’s vegetable patch not only has potatoes that Adam helped to plant but is overrun with broad beans. Nana seems to have enough to feed a small army. Needless to say Nana has come up with a variety of ways to serve broad beans.
Beth and Adam have great fun removing the broad beans from their pods.
It is a great way of developing their fine motor skills whist feeling the different textures of the beans and their pods.
Adam enjoyed counting the broad beans as he took them out of their pod and dropped them into the saucepan.
Equipment for shelling broad beans:
*broad beans still in their shell.
Adam was 2 years and 2 months old.
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Looks like they had a lot of fun!
I love how the cousins take a different stance on each activity.
looks like a fab day at Nanas. And wow, what a veggie patch. My little ones love the pea pods too, but we have to go to a farm to pick them, which isn’t very often. #countrykids
We are very lucky that Nana only lives down the road. She is instilling a love of growing vegetables into her grandchildren – it must have missed my generation!
What a lovely garden in which to play and explore.
The children (and adults) love it. Nana and Grandad also have a wind turbine which the children adore.
Outdoor fun and learning combined with some lovely activities to hone their fine motor skills. Thanks for linking up and sharing with Country Kids.
Any excuse to be outside 🙂
Lovely ways to play.Shelling broad beans and peas is always fun for little ones x
#countrykids
Fine motor skills AND helping to prepare for lunch – perfect!
Awww who wouldve have think that simple task like this is helping kids to have a better motor skills! Amazing! We dont have candle holder but I think we can do w/ the broadbeans activity. Thanks for sharing as always. #countrykids
Multi tasking at 2 years old!
such cute kids! I still haven’t met a child who didn’t like beans. They’re fun food. Thanks for posting this on my Homeschool Preschool Link Party
With so many beans in Nana’s vegetable patch Adam certainly has experienced a variety of bean meals!