Remembrance Day activity

(Goblin is 24 months)

Next Sunday is Remembrance Sunday and all the poppy sellers are out in force. Goblin was quite excited when he saw me wearing a poppy. I told him what it was and he walked round saying "poppy, poppy". He's too young for me to explain why I was wearing it. 
I thought Goblin would like to play with some so I went to 10 different sellers and paid each  £1 for a poppy (its for a good cause). I made Goblin his very own poppy field. 

 I wanted him to use his pincer grip to push the poppies into the playdough. He was quite good at taking them out but the stalks on the poppies are quite bendy so he struggled to get them in and upright. (This is similar to the montessori activity where you push golf tees into foam and balance marbles on them). We counted the poppies as he took them out. So the activity doubled as number practice too. He played this for a while before moving them to his vehicle. (In between he decided to do some pouring practice and got a bit wet. Hence the lack of clothes)

Safety warning:  The bought poppies come apart - the small black middle can pop off and be a choking hazard. Here is Goblin demonstrating what not to do.

After a bit of poppy play Goblin focussed on the playdough ball. He rolled the playdough ball down the sofa seats and then discovered that if he put it in his bilibo he could swing it around and its inertia made it carry on rolling round the bowl.  He spun and spun - the ball flew out several times. 

I was really pleased that my prescribed play had turned into such open ended play. The initial activity only lasted ten minutes but the games that evolved from it lasted most of the morning. 

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