This month in the Infant Room, educator Michelle planned an activity inspired by the infants’ growing interest in planting. After planting seeds together, the infants continued to point and babble excitedly at the plants they had helped place in the window. Noticing their ongoing curiosity and engagement, Michelle reflected on how to extend this interest and introduced a follow-up flower planting activity to build on their experience. She picked up a variety of fake flowers from the dollar store as well as some little planter cups. That morning she pulled out our big bag of sand and filled both our black sensory bins with it. She also collected some scoops so that the infants could fill their planter cups with “soil” and then add in whatever flower they wanted.
The infants babbled with so much excitement as they watched educators Katie and Michelle pull out the craft mats and get everything ready. “Who’s ready to come plant some flowers?” Michelle asked smiling. The infants smiled and babbled back as they came over to check it out. “Wooooooaaahhhh” we heard a lot of the infants say as they grabbed a scoop and a cup to fill with “soil.” Some of the infants went for the flowers first, bringing it up to their noses to sniff. “Does it smell nice?” Michelle asked smiling, the infants would smile and babbled back as they’d hold it out for her to smell as well.
This activity was not only great for fine motor development but also for numeracy skills as we counted how many scoops it took to fill the cups up. It was also great for colour development as we talked about the different colours of flowers we got to pick from! We had so much fun throughout the whole activity and the infants stayed engaged for a very long time! Do you have any ideas on what we should do next to continue building on this interest?
