Sword and sand hearts

This was totally unplanned. My son was spending some time in the garden fighting baddies as he would say. Then he noticed his sand pit and started using his sword to mark it. Then I thought I'll draw a heart and see if he can copy it.

He had a good try and then started to trace my heart.

He then destroyed them and laughed.

Very quick and easy activity . He wanted me to flatten the sand to do it again but obviously not as flat second time around.

This activity could be brought inside with a tray of sand or even salt and a paint brush.

If you have heart moulds/shapes they could be used to draw around.

You could also do sand hand prints in the shape of a heart.

Sandpit fun: small world dino land

My husband has built my son a brilliant sand pit and  I have been trying out new ways to get him to use it.  He enjoys playing with his dinosaurs and one of the previous times was also using playdoh and pasta.  So I decided to make him a small world  dino land with twigs, leaves and stones.  He is only 21/2 so he wouldn't be able to make one on his own.  I then had to model and explain what it was and how to play .

He started burying body parts. 

He made and identified foot prints by counting the number of toes/ claws.

We talked about carnivores eating meat and herbivores eating plants and role played this.

I was impressed how quickly he understood.

Then we lined them up in order of size.

Then he wanted to knock them off using a ball.

There are lots of activities to do with sand and dinosaurs.

The ones we covered today :-

Dino prints: make and match

Feeding habits 

Imaginative play

Sequencing- size

Sorting by colour

Describing body parts/ counting body parts

Balancing 

Target practise

I think he enjoyed to role play and burying the most.

Dylan 2.7

It was a lovely day, enjoyed the weather. Another easy activity for my son to enjoy the fantastic sandpit my husband made.