The Hooligans were busy cooking up a big batch of garden soup this morning!
This is one of our favourite Spring-time activities! Making garden soup is as easy as setting out some bowls, spoons, ladles, a jug or two of coloured water and some scissors so the kids can go around the garden collecting their ingredients.
Making the soup is more than just fun and play. There’s lots of learning going on here as well. The children are practicing fine motor skills as they pick and snip the flowers for their soup. They’re making decisions as to which plants and flowers they want to select. There’s scooping and pouring and using tonging (is that a word?) and ladling. There’s plenty of exercise as they run around the yard collecting their ingredients, carrying them all back to the “kitchen”, and then heading back out to the garden again. There’s collaboration and co-operation and the sharing of utensils in the kitchen, and imaginations flourish! So many healthy benefits in this simple play activity!
They’ll be kept busy chopping, scooping, pouring, mixing and cooking up a storm! And clean up is a breeze… It all gets dumped back into the garden when they’re finished!
Bon Appetit!
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Love it, you are so fortunate to have such lovely flowers to snip off & add to your soup, ours is mainly bark chippings, grass & weeds!
What about hitting the clearance rack at a garden center, Kierna? Could you could pick up some containers of plants that are past their best, and let the kids have a go at them?
Beautiful photos Jackie!
Thanks, Crystal!
Oh, that takes me back! I used to spend hours making flower soup and fairy houses with my friend next door when we were kids!
Your comment just made my day! One of the most important things to me, in my daycare, is to provide the Hooligans with those experiences that we had when we were kids – good, old-fashioned fun, so I LOVE hearing that an activity that we’ve done reminds a reader of something they did when they were a child. Glad this brought back some happy memories for you.
We used to do this when I was a kid, too! Only we called it perfume. We put the water in cups and tried to give it to our parents.
Lovely! Nice to be reminded that it’s spring somewhere in the world!
How fun! Brings back memories of my own childhood.
What fun – I love how kids can involve themselves so much in their activity. My girls took all the vegetables out of my fridge today and played farmers market – I had to buy them all back!
Great idea! Pinned (so doing this tomorrow!)
that looks like so much fun. I don’t actually have that many flowers growing in the garden but I have been known to buy cheap bunches so Goblin can mess around with them.
Great idea to purchase inexpensive flowers to play with!
I did this as a child. I absolutely loved all the images. Thanks for sharing. You made me smile!
You’re welcome, Zina! Glad it brought back some fun memories for you.
What a fun project for kids & I love the practice for their fine motor skills! Thanks for sharing at the Discover & Explore Gardening with Kids linky – pinning to share with others!