Little Pea has to be one of our favorite books yet! It’s just so cute! That precious little fella hates eating candy and is over the moon to be served spinach for dessert, how hilarious is that? Pretty funny if you ask my girls. 🙂
Our math themed activity was inspired by the story and had the girls moving and creating all kinds of fun! To start out I grabbed a green container of Play-doh last time we were out at Walmart (only $0.50.) Then, I printed this simple but fun play-doh mat page. I slipped it into page protectors (only $1.00 from Target) and let the girls create and play.
To begin we practiced rolling a piece of Play-doh into a ball. This is easy for Macie Jane (4) but something that Sadie (2) is still working on. Play-doh is a great fine motor skill builder for littles.
Next we placed that ball on the “little pea” at the top of the page and I had the girls smoosh it flat and talked about how a ball/sphere turns into a circle when flattened.
Then I had the girls make three different sized balls and sort them into the correlating bowl- a big ball for the big bowl, a medium ball for the medium bowl, and a small ball for the small bowl. They made lots of little “peas” and filled up the bowls. They had a great time smooshing the balls into flat circles and then eventually the activity digressed to open ended play- not a bad thing. 🙂
Keep in mind that attention spans for 2-5 year olds can vary greatly but no matter which age that span isn’t very long. Try to aim for 3-5 minutes of good intentional conversation/instruction and let them enjoy and have fun. More important than skills right now is creating safe and inviting environment for learning. You want your little to want to learn- make it fun and you’ll be amazed at how much they pick up even if it’s just 3-5 minutes! Children are incredibly smart and soak up more than we know!
If you don’t have the {FREE} printable Play-doh mat click the download below and happy creating!
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