While sitting at the park earlier this week, the girls and I started collecting acorns in Charlotte’s shoe. It was calming, and we could have done it for hours. Charlotte wanted to collect some acorns at home, and I thought it would be cool if we could fill up a whole bucket and have an acorn sensory bin. James thought we were crazy, but he can get behind any project that requires some creative problem solving. We sat under the tree and started picking them up individually. That was slow moving, so then we started picking up handfuls and blowing off the leaves…which led to getting out the leaf blower to blow the leaves off a large area of acorn covered ground. A fan cover became a sifter and acorns were gathered, sifted, sorted, and then poured into the bin. Once we had a bunch of acorns in the bin, we all couldn’t help but put our hands through it. It reminded me of putting my hand through corn kernels on the farm when I was a girl. I had to laugh when Charlotte brought out a penny to hide in the acorns because we used to do that in the corn kernels growing up. She also got some spoons and made plans for giving the acorns a bath. These are my favorite learning experiences, experiences that involve nature, fine motor development, sensory integration, science, problem solving, measuring, and it could go on. Sure, we have had acorns on our floor that Atlas chews up and we step on, but I can see hours more of entertainment coming from that acorn bin.
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All Mountains and Molehills 