A Bunny In the Garden

      Spring is upon us and in our household we have been very busy. Now that we own our own home we decided to put in a full garden. We decided the garden should be a family endeavor, after all we will all benefit from it. It also gives us a chance to teach Cutes Patoots about where the vegetables she eats come from. As well as patience (okay not really) but it does teach her about caring for living things. In the spirit of this we bought her her very own gardening set (gloves, a trowel, a gardening fork, watering can, and a bucket to keep it all in). Because Cutes just turned 2 we chose to go with plastic instead of metal. I also bought her a packet of butterfly flower seeds, and a wide shallow pot to plant them in. She gets her own flower garden and I will hopefully get either butterflies or some bees to pollinate the big garden. She had a blast planting the seeds and helping me to break up the potting soil. Well gardening has it's issues and our biggest one are the jack rabbits. They have already killed a couple of my smaller plants. Apparently "Bunny did it" is a theme in my life.
     This brings us to our sensory project. In honor of the weather warming and our new garden (and pests) I wanted to do something with a spring theme. I took to Pinterest looking for inspiration. I found this activity over at Mama Miss. I knew immediately I wanted to do something similar. The next morning I made a quick trip to Dollar Tree to pick up the carrot "eggs" and low and behold they even had some eggs shaped like bunnies. I also picked up 4 16oz bags of dried black beans.
      When I got home I wanted to make the bin about more than just exploring the beans and gardening but I also wanted to talk about the differences in layers of soil. I still had about 30 oz of colored rice we used in the fall for a different sensory bin that was still in usable/playable condition. I added this to the bottom of a bin and placed all my carrots. I then added the beans, the rabbits, a shovel we had, and a few containers and waited for her to wake up. While I waited I thought that perhaps since this was all about gardening we should do the activity outside in the glorious spring weather and I set up this invitation for her.

 

 Here she is accepting my invitation:

       In the process of getting busy being a toddler I talked to Cutes Patoots about the differences in soil and how it changes as you dig deeper. Sure enough she decided to dig deeper.

A Bunny in the Garden Sensory Bin

Materials:

1. Black Beans or really any dry bean works. It might also be interesting with cooked beans (I used 4 16oz bags)
2. Uncooked Rice (I used colored rice from a previous bin, I think it was 3 16oz bags worth)
3. Something carrot shaped (I used Easter carrot eggs which you can find all over the place right now)
4. Something bunny shaped (again I used Easter eggs)
5. A Shovel 
6. Some small containers/cups
7. A large clear bin to hold it all

     NOTE: If you are going to do different soil types I highly recommend putting in the first layer of soil and then the carrots to keep the layers from mixing.

     After you do the about 5 minutes of prep set the bin somewhere for your little one to explore. I recommend outside if at all possible. The beans will fly! This is a great opportunity to talk to your tike about things like gardening, beans, soil types, growth and a great chance to expose them to language.

  This activity was a great success with Cutes Patoots. She was busy digging, scooping, and picking up beans in her pincer grasp for over an hour and it was fun for me to talk to her and just watch as she explored all the different elements in the bin. It was a really fabulous time.