Beaching It... Backyard Style!
- Aimee Folk
- Jun 5, 2018
- 2 min read
It's June and well into summer weather here in southern Texas! Stryder is constantly asking to go to the beach and collect shells but, being 8 months pregnant, mama can't handle that kind of heat! This is where those lovely early childhood educator ideas make for wonderful mom cheats! We have a little plastic pool that we got at Target last year (probably around $10). Stryder has moved on from this pool and is now in a slightly larger inflatable pool so it just sits around doing nothing. LIGHTBULB MOMENT! With a quick trip to Home Depot and a few bags of play-sand we were able to make our very own "beach" in our backyard!
Not to let a learning moment pass us by, I quickly grabbed one of our favorite Usborne titles Shine-a-Light: Secrets of the Seashore! As Stryder was playing in the sandbox, scooping shells and having a grand old time, I read him the book. He would pause occasionally to shine the light behind the page to reveal the hidden image and then see if he could find that animal in his own "seashore". We talked about the different shapes of the shells in the book and in his sand box as well as the variety of different animals we could find at the seashore.
After playing in his backyard beach for quite some time we headed inside for a refreshing drink of water. Stryder was still interested in the topic, however, so we decided to make an impromptu art project! We found the page in the book about starfish then we cut out a piece of paper into a starfish shape. Using a paper plate as our "ocean", Stryder painted the plate blue (mixed with a little glitter for a nice pop effect). We then glued the starfish on the top of the paper plate. Once the starfish was on the plate Stryder wanted to decorate it some more. We used a paintbrush to put glue on the starfish and as you know if you give a toddler glue, he's going to want some glitter to go with it! Glitter tends to be messy so, using an old salt shaker I mixed some glitter with colorful craft sand and let him go to town shaking the glitter-sand onto the star! It was an easy and relatively low mess way to end this perfect little exploration into the seashore!
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