Sensory Fun – Corn Cobs and Sunflowers
I am blessed to have a couple of good friends who always think of us as they’re harvesting their crops and gardens in the fall and they drop by with a load of fall goodies for the hooligans to explore and play with.
The hooligans love discovering all that nature has to offer in the fall. Fun fall activities involving crisp autumn leaves, shiny brown chestnuts, and golden-yellow corn cobs and sunflowers are always a hit with the toddlers and preschoolers in my daycare.
Corn cobs and sunflowers may just be the favourites here because they’re so fun to take apart! Every fall, my toddlers and preschoolers spend hours, days in fact, picking all the seeds out of the centre of our sunflowers and removing every last kernel from every last cob of corn.
Recently, I spread out our bounty of sunflowers and corn cobs for the hooligans to discover as they arrived one morning.
I’ll take a moment now to say a big THANK YOU to my friends for dropping these delightful treasures off at my doorstep!
The inviting fall display captivated the hooligans and they immediately examined the items, and with my encouragement, began dissenting them. They’ve been busy for days, pulling kernels off of cobs and seeds out of the sunflowers.
I’m not going to do a whole lot of talking here, because the pictures will show you how much fun we’ve had.
Touching, feeling, plucking and picking; these items have provided us with so much educational entertainment and sensory fun!
And we’re not the only ones enjoying this fall activity! Every time we leave the play area, the blue jays and the squirrels move in and enjoy our treasures as well.
I have more plans in store for the corn kernels, but we have to finish stripping all of the cobs, so stay tuned to see what we’ll do next with our stash! Stay tuned!
How have you been playing outdoors this week? We’d love to know what you’ve been up to!
Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
