Kian prefers to scoop and dump, making the biggest mess of the 3.
Felicity usually makes little worlds in her broiling pan. She sets up animals on little hills.
And my car/truck obsessed boy usually makes his broiling pan into a mini construction site.
The texture of choice is always just something we have on hand. On this day it was polenta and baby rice cereal. I'd just cleaned out my pantry. The polenta was outdated, and the rice cereal....well, Kian's WAY too old for it and we honestly never really used it. We've been known to use salt, flour, powdered sugar, shaving cream, hair mousse, and water for our texture play times. I've been wanting to set up a tub of beans for them to play in, but Kian still has straight to the mouth tendencies (if you know what I mean) so I think that will have to wait a bit longer.
On this particular day, the kids were extra busy so I buried treasures in each of their pans for added interest. The older two were told how many buried objects they were to find and that kept them busy for a while. Once the objects were found, then they went on to their imaginary play with their texture pans. Kian just got excited when he randomly found new treasures while playing and pouring.
Rowan was 'helping' me make a polenta pie the other day and he loved the wet polenta (not cooked, just wet). Luckily the pie was just for our family, so we didn't mind that he had been playing with the polenta for a half hour before I cooked it :o) I'll have to try the dry stuff - he'd like that too.
ReplyDeleteJenny, I love this post! Playing with beans, rice, etc. is one of Asa's absolute favorite things to do. He is always asking me to "play beans."
ReplyDeleteYa gotta not mind a mess!
<3