Garden Soup ~ Playing in Nature

Garden soup nature playCombine water and natural garden resources to invite children to create some Garden Soup!

EYFS Areas Developed:

  • Expressive Arts & Design: taking part in imaginary play, using natural resources to represent food
  • Physical: developing fine motor control through picking the flowers, stirring and pouring

Last weekend Sophia (2.3yrs) went off exploring with her Granny on a dog walk in the country. She had a wonderful time and came back armed with a bag of ‘treasure’ she had collected along the way. Pebbles, dandelion clocks, flowers, leaves, sticks…there is something so sweet about children’s love of these little, special items.

I knew that we’d have to do something special with her collection and not just let them wilt. So we decided to cook up some wonderful Garden Soup!

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I arranged the assortment of treasures in a large bowl and added in some sliced up lemon for an added sensory experience. I used Sophia’s wooden pans and utensils from her play kitchen and added a jug of water next to it all.

I supported Sophia as she poured the water from the jug to the saucepans and then she started creating her concoctions!

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Garden soup 5She plucked the petals from the flowers which was super for strengthening her fine motor skills as well as stirring her ingredients into her soup.

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The smell from the lemon was so refreshing and zingy while the petals added a subtle floral scent. Sophia kept lifting the saucepans to her nose and saying ‘mmmm’’ yummy!’

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Sophia finished off her soups by adding a sprinkle of wishes from the dandelion seeds. So much fun was had and once the soup was ready we sat on the picnic blanket and tried her creation.

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