Summer Reading Fun: Up, Down, and Around

 When I originally planned all these summer reading activities it was with the idea of implementing them in our local library using the book Bear and Bunny Grow Tomatoes, which I knew they had in their collection.  After our move, when I discovered that this book is nowhere to be found in our new library system (which surprised me because it's a huge library network), we had to switch things up and went with more of a general garden theme instead of just focusing on the tomatoes. It was still a lot of fun and worked out perfectly.

For our play dough this week I made this scrumptious smelling chocolate play dough. It looked like dirt, and the kids loved making their own little gardens with rocks, flowers/leaves, and toy bugs.

Our art project this week as really fun. The kids colored on coffee filters with markers, then sprayed their art work with water and watched the magic happen. After things dried in the sun for a bit we added some cute little apple borders I found here and hung our art on the wall.

For our gross motor, I had planned to play this fun apple toss game. I picked up a couple packages of these balls from Amazon for us to use. We ended up cutting things a bit short this week and never got around to playing the game, but I think the kids would have had a good time with it.

Our sensory bin this week was pretty epic. The kids thought it was amazing! I put 50 lbs of rice in a kiddie pool, added in the toys from our play dough fun plus all the fruits/veggies from our play food, and all the digging/scooping toys I could find. The kids had a blast digging and playing their pretend garden.

 For our snack this week we could have gone with any possible number of healthy garden fruits and/or veggies. Instead though I decided to have some fun with the kids and made a dirt cake instead. I assembled it in a clean flower pot (purchased just for this and scrubbed well before using), and stuck a couple bunches of fake flowers in there. It looked real enough that the kids were a bit shocked when I dug in and ate a big spoonful of the "dirt" right from the pot. I wish I'd gotten a picture, but they gobbled it up too fast for that.

Last, but not least, here is a list of all the fun garden themed books we used to inspire our fun. Clicking the image will take you to Amazon, where you can learn more about any book you're interested in.

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.