Imprints From Tricia

Well it's finally starting to look like Spring around here and spring fever has hit!!

Today I'd like to share our Spring Scenes project that the girls worked hard on the other day.

I love to experiment with different types of art media and so do the kids! For this project we used cardboard as the "background" for the Spring Scenes.

I introduced the project by setting up the materials ahead of time and inviting them to play.

In addition to the cardboard I set out oil pastels, various spring time stickers and foam flower stickers.

My 3 year old spent most of her time with the stickers.

My 4 year old enjoyed drawing with the oil pastels and then experimented with the various stickers.

After awhile they both said they were done and moved on to something else. I left everything out on the table and my 4 year old continued to "work" on her project for the next two days. She asked me to leave it out so she could revisit it. It was really interesting and exciting to see her so concentrated and intent on her project. It was done all at her own pace!

When kids are given the freedom to create in an open ended manner I truly believe that self motivation happens naturally!

Her finished labor of love below!

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I created this Easter Sensory Bin after stocking up on items from the dollar store. I know there's no shortage of these sensory bins on Pinterest but I still wanted to share our seasonal Easter Sensory Bin because it was so incredibly easy to put together, super inexpensive and more importantly the girls had so much fun with it!

I filled it with a few bags of beans, plastic eggs, and Easter grass. That's it! Just like I said, SO EASY!

My 3 year old enjoyed exploring with the the beans and plastic eggs. She loved scooping them into the eggs, closing it and shaking the eggs. She also enjoyed dumping them out.

My 4 year old wanted to fit the grass into the eggs but decided she needed scissors to help her with this task. So we brought out the scissors and both girls enjoyed cutting the grass. This is an example of allowing the children to lead in their play. Bringing the scissors out was not originally planned by me. It was entirely her idea and we went with it!