Monthly play roundup: September

We’ve been having some very strange weather last month which just couldn’t seem to make up it’s mind whether to jump into spring or hold back to winter. But towards the end of the month, I think winter is finally relenting and letting go of it’s chilly grip over us. Anyway here’s a roundup of some of the things we’ve been up to in September…

Steamed Buns
Our favourite cooking activity last month was making these soft, fluffy, white steamed buns with red bean filling. The homemade filling was from the adzuki beans I had used to make snowskin mooncakes earlier that month. We made the dough with pao flour (similar to cake flour) which was very soft and pliable and very nice to work with. The children said it felt just like playdough.

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Pattern and Counting Activity Trays
Extending on some math and numeracy learning we’ve been focusing on recently, I downloaded and printed out a couple of pattern recognition and watermelon seed counting worksheets (here and here) for the children to work on. For the watermelon counting activity, I rolled out some playdough into tiny balls for seeds. For the square pattern recognition activity, I used small coloured wooden craft cubes.

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Cardboard Tube Owls
Following a book we read about an owl, we made these cute owl crafts from carboard tubes, decorated with coloured paper and craft feathers. Books have always been one of my favourite ways to find inspiration for fun and educational activities and learning ideas.

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Threading with Egg Carton Pieces
’Threading’ is one of the ways to build up fine motor skills in little fingers. Apart from threading with beads, you can pretty much turn almost anything into a threading material. I cut up some egg carton boxes, punched some holes in the middle of each piece and threw in a piece of string for the children to thread with.

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Pretend Cooking with Gumnuts
With the weather warming up, we’ve been spending more and more time outdoors. One of the children’s favourite loose parts to play with is our collection of gumnuts. Apparently they taste very good flavoured with freshly picked weeds and wildflowers from the garden.

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Homemade Lavender Sachets
Apart from wildflowers, I sometimes let the children pick the flowers from our lavender bushes which have been blossoming profusely over the past month. On one of the days, we decided to use the lavender to make our own lavender sachets. After sorting through the lavender and removing the stems and other wildflowers, I let the children select their choice of fabric from my scrap fabric stash. I quickly sewed the fabric into little square bags and the children filled them up with lavender blossoms before giving them a final stitch shut.

 

 

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If you enjoyed this post, you can check out last month’s roundup of activities and more of my other play and learning ideas. Stay tuned for next month’s roundup!