Now that you have made your bee let’s fly them around the yard together. Make sure your stick has lots of room. Let’s see what your bee finds to sniff and smell.
You will need:
- Bee on a stick & string
- 3 cups or containers
- short fat stick for squishing
- 5 senses scavenger hunt
Once you’ve had your bit of fun with your bee, hang her somewhere safe and choose some delicious smelly things to add to your pots. You can just put one thing in each pot or mix one or two together.
Have a smell. Is it delicious?
Get your fat stick and squish those leaves, grasses and flowers into the bottoms of your cups.
Make sure to squish lots and smash up all those pieces. You could add a tiny bit of water to your cup if that helps you mix and squish.
Now smell. Is it different?
Squishing and smashing the leaves helps release some of the scents just like when you dig in your garden you can smell the earth because you’ve stirred it all up.
Let’s bring those pots into your play area and mix up some treats for your friends.
Have fun!
To the grownups:
Making potions is one of those activities almost all children enjoy. Keep the play going by letting your child have a little bit of water and some scissors to pour, scoop, snip and mix into many many different jars and containers.
Ideally there is somewhere in your backyard set up as a kind of kitchen mud area but really anywhere works.
Bring it inside:
You can extend this activity indoors further by making your own smelly pots and having your children guess what the smells are. Use a cup or a jar, wrap paper around the edges if it’s clear and cover the top with a tissue and rubber band. Some ideas to put in your jars are:
- citrus peels
- fresh pine needles or sap
- coffee
- lavendar buds
- garlic
Playdough Prompt
If you have a mortar and pestle at home it is a wonderful tool to add to your children’s playdough play.
Gather some whole dried leaves and herbs and include them in a playdough set up.
Rosemary is a fun one and dried flowers like lavendar. If you really want your child to work throw a few all spice balls in the mix. Beware you might end up stepping on the ones that jumped away 😉
You could add scissors and longer pieces of herbs for them to trim into the playdough on another occasion.