Gardening With Kids: Beautiful Math And Art Activity

Kids enjoy getting their hands dirty and helping out in the garden is a great way to put that love of dirt to good use. And gardening with kids is actually a great way to help their development. Planting seeds and helping them grow gives kids a sense of purpose and responsibility. The tasks of tending to a garden, such as adding soil and seeds to a pot, or watering plants helps with motor skills, body management and object control. In addition, the sensory experience of feeling the soil, the water, seeds or any natural material is very engaging for little ones.

There is also so much to talk about! And conversation is a great way to develop young minds. So to bring this all together, we have prepared a simple activity that will help kids develop math skills and creativity in an environment that is already nurturing their minds. This is a lovely activity you can set up and do regularly when you want to do some gardening with kids and observe different results. So next time you are out in the garden, take a moment to do this simple yet fun garden math and art activity.

Materials

Seeds: we used “cat grass” seeds as they grow pretty easily
Mix of natural materials and loose parts: we used stones, leaves, sticks, string, and colorful stones which we had from a local shop
Pots with soil
Scissors

Preparation

Gather natural materials by going on a nature walk or use previously collected treasures
Prepare the pots with the soil
Bring out all the materials

Gardening With Kids: Math And Art Activity

The math part mainly consists of working on numbers, shapes and patterns. Pattern awareness is key to child development. The ability to recognize and reproduce patterns as well as the ability to predict how a pattern will continue is a skill that positively affects future mathematical understanding and thinking. How to do this:

Start by drawing numbers in the soil
Trace with natural materials and work on shapes and patterns as you trace

For example: Draw number 1 and make patterns of 1, draw number 2 and make patterns of 2, or make a circle around number 3 and a triangle around number 4

Fill the numbers with seeds
Draw more shapes and fill with seeds
Cover up
Decorate and play

For the decoration part we used a different pot with soil and let the kids do their thing in a more unstructured way to let them explore at their own pace

Optional: make a number/shape map. As you will read below, our numbers didn’t come out quite as clearly as we had hoped for so we had to guess. Drawing a sketch of your pots and having your kids write in the numbers and shapes is a great way to cross-check and also perfect for tying up this educational activity.

Gardening and Math Talk With Kids

Gardening with kids is good for the body, soul, and mind of everyone involved. It also opens up a whole lot of conversation topics. It is so important that you talk, talk, talk to your kids during activities like this. Observations lead to connections, which lead to discovery. Help them along by giving them the vocabulary they need to express their thoughts and questions. You can also ask some open-ended questions about what they think will happen and why. When gardening with kids there is so much to talk about and this activity also offers you the chance to add in some math talk. Here are some suggestions and conversation topics:

What do you think plants need to grow? (water, sun, soil)
Talk about the parts of the plant (roots, stem, leaves, flower, seeds)
How do you think the plant “drinks” water?
Measure the grass as it comes out
Count the sprouts as they come out, which pot has more/less?
Can we identify the numbers/shapes/patterns? (use the map if you have one)

gardening with kids numbers shapes patterns for preschoolers hands-on activity

Follow-up Activity

We tended to the grass on a regular basis and were quite excited to see it sprout! Unfortunately, the numbers were not as clear as we would have liked them to be, so we had to do some detective work. First we talked about the activity and tried to remember which numbers we had drawn and then we tried to guess by the markings in the soil. It was a good way to reflect on the activity and ask ourselves if there is a better way of doing this. We decided next time we would make a number and shape map and mark where everything went so we could cross check once the grass grew. We also used the chance to work on scissor skills by cutting the grass which was fun and engaging in itself.

Even though the results were not what we expected, this activity gave us the opportunity to talk, observe, and make connections about how our world works. And any activity that gives us the chance to do this is great for us!

For more hands-on number and shape activities:

For more nature activities:

Discover Color Mixing With This Simple Hands-on Activity

Always have food coloring at home. You never know when the perfect opportunity will present itself to use it for play. This activity was one of those moments in which looking around at what our kid was playing with the thought came to me. What if we added some color to this? We gathered the materials, added some food coloring and voilá, a fun and entertaining color mixing activity! This engaging hands-on color mixing activity to learn colors is so simple and yet very entertaining for little ones as they can see the effects of mixing colors all by themselves. They will also develop their fine motor and critical thinking skills as they try different combinations and observe the results.

hands on color mixing activity with water to learn about colors and develop fine motor skills and critical thinking

Materials For Hands-on Color Mixing Activity

Here are the materials we used but you can always adapt to whatever you have at home.

Plastic syringe
Plastic painting tray
Containers for mixing water and color (we used the Ikea ice pop maker which was great because it had a stand)
Paintbrush and thick paper for later

The plastic syringe was great for motor skills and it did add a level of fun that is different from just pouring from a cup. Also the plastic painting tray added a lovely pretend-play artist vibe to it.

Preparation and Color Mixing

This is how we did it:

We added water to three containers
Mixed in the food coloring (just red, yellow and blue)
Used the syringe to transfer water to the tray
Played and discovered what happened when mixing colors
Once the tray was full, our kid decided she wanted to paint with her beautiful palette so that is what she did

This hands-on color mixing activity is perfect for preschool-aged kids to do all by themselves. The only thing I oversaw was adding color because blue tends to be overpowering. Other than that you can sit back and observe or join in the excitement of color mixing!

fine motor skills development practice hands on color mixing activity

Color Talk For Your Hands-On Color Mixing Activity

As always, we encourage you to talk to your kids during these activities. This will help them enrich their vocabulary which is key when learning about new things. Some great ways to engage in conversation and some critical thinking in this hands-on color mixing activity could be:

Introduce the concept of primary colors and let them explore to see how many different colors they can create
I love that color, what primary colors did you use to create that one?
What happens if you mix…?
Can you try making…? (trial and error)
Have you tried mixing…? What do you think will happen? Let’s see if you were right
Talk about tone, what happens if you mix more of one color with just a bit of the other?

There are many opportunities for some great conversations about color and children seem to gravitate towards colorful experiences so this is a great activity for that. Also, playing with water is always so soothing for kids and a great sensory experience.

Explore more…

For more great activities to do with water:

Or more hands-on color mixing activties:

hands on color mixing activity develop fine motor skills critical thinking and learn about colors with water

Math For Toddlers: Easy Sensory Bath Time Activity

Introducing math skills at an early age should definitely be done through fun activities. Connecting math to positive feelings is great for confidence and self-esteem. Bath time at our house is a happy moment. The warm water, the bubbles, the warm bathroom. It is a moment that gives us all peace. As the kids splash around and play in the warmth I get a moment to pause for the day. In this moment of comfort it is possible to sneak in some math for toddlers through play with an easy low-prep activity that requires materials you probably already have at home. It has so much learning potential; color mixing, math and even literacy skills can be practiced. So read on to find out how you can create some bath paint and use the wall as a learning canvas to get their little minds working.

Easy Sensory Bath Time Activity

Important! If you are doing this with young kids that still put things in their mouth be very careful and pay attention so that they don’t eat it. I personally would do this activity once they are over with the sticking-everything-in-their-mouth phase

Materials

Baking pan for cupcakes/Ice cube tray
Shaving cream
Food Coloring
Optional paint brush (playing with your hands is always more fun for kids!)

Preparation

You can prepare the tray with the colors and the shaving cream beforehand and have it as a surprise (we did this the first time with our kid and she was really excited) or you can prepare it together. Preparing it together gives you the chance to talk about color mixing! Either way, here are the steps for the preparation:

Squeeze some drops of food coloring into each shape. Mix different primary colors to create a whole variety of colors. Remember you are mixing with white so you will be getting different color tones too! Explore and see what color palette appears on your tray
Next add some shaving cream to each shape.
Mix it with your child and watch the colors appear “magically”

Usually the blue color is overwhelmingly strong when mixing with the other colors so use less than you think, you can always add more later.

Math For Toddlers

Now it’s time to sneak in some math for your young toddlers! But first of all, let your child explore by themselves with this new bath time paint. When I tried the activity for the first time my daughter loved the different colors but didn’t know what to do with them. Painting at bath time? A bit out of context… Having a bath had always been about getting clean not painting. So I showed her how she could use it on her body as well as on the wall. Then I let her take over and she was happily playing by herself for a long time.

At one point I asked her if I could paint too. We created a big happy mess on the wall and all the colors ended up mixed together, creating a brownish-grey mush. At that moment I realized that the wall had become a learning canvas. We could draw numbers and letters, erasing and repeating all the time. Great for motor skills and perfect for sneaking in some STEM through play!

How To Create An Educational Experience

There is so much you can do with that lovely learning canvas depending on your child’s age! However, if you are looking for math ideas for toddlers here are some suggestions to inspire you:

Draw a number on the wall and have them trace it with their finger
Explore shapes: prepare a shape matching game by drawing pairs of shapes that they have to match
Counting practice. Draw a number of circles and ask your kid to count them or ask them to make a number of lines. Connect this with the number by using an extra blank canvas. Draw a number of circles and then the number on the other one. Ask them to count and then trace the number.
Patterns: create simple patterns with dots and lines and say them out loud together

In terms of math skills, there is not much more to explore at this age, so just focus on developing their vocabulary by talking about shapes, numbers and counting.

If you are reading this and thinking of doing it with older kids here are some more ideas:

Ask your kids to draw their own numbers. This can be done by asking different questions that have a number as an answer such as how many pets do you have? or how many times do you brush your teeth?
Bring in some equations and ask them to solve them! They can use an extra blank canvas if they need some assistance in figuring it out. For example, on one canvas you can write the equation 4-2= and on the other one draw 4 circles and they can erase 2 to find the solution. With adding, they just draw extra circles and count how many they get in total.

Connecting Math To A Quality Moment

By doing this with your child you are connecting math to a quality moment within their comfort zone. There is no better way for a child’s mind to learn than when they feel safe, happy and motivated. Use this moment to have fun, explore together and to boost confidence in their math abilities.

Once the fun is over, I do recommend that you quickly rinse your child off so they don’t smell like a freshly shaved man. It comes off easily from the body and wall. Also, this activity does not need to be just at bath time, it’s just easier to clean up. You can also just use some trays as your learning canvases and do this math for toddlers activity outside. I hope you can get into it in whatever way you choose and can share the excitement your child will show. They will be thankful you made the extra effort that day.

More Fun Activities and Games:

math stem skills shaving cream messy play bath time paint

Milk The Cow STEM Challenge: Can You Mimic Nature?

At our house it has been all about farm animals latey. So I was happily surprised when I got some materials out for her and it evolved into learning how to milk a cow! She was just 3 at the time so was not overly involved in the design process. However, she did observe how I kept making mistakes as I tried to create the most efficient milking device aka cow udder. She was the one in charge of testing the device and we talked about how good/bad it was. I perfected the design and when I explain it to you you will see just how easy it is!!! But it did take me a couple tries to get the water flowing properly so it’s a great engineering experience for older kids! For younger ones, just being involved in the process and then playing with it will be enough. So keep reading to find out how you can create your own milking device.

STEM Challenge: Can You Mimic Nature?

Mother Nature is the number one designer. With years of evolution behind her she carefully selects what works and what doesn’t. Engineers and scientists often try to replicate nature’s designs to be used in everyday items and processes. This is called Biomimetics and it is so interesting! The most obvious example is flight. Birds inspired inventors to find a way so that we could also cruise the skies. Here you can find some other cool examples. With this in mind, I created a fun activity that can introduce older kids to this concept and that can also be used for play with younger kids.

Introduction to the Activity

In my case it was easy to get my kid involved. I put a bucket full of water out and told her we were going to learn how to milk a cow. As she is loving farm animals, this was enough to get her curious enough to do the activity. As I worked on the design, she helped me try it out each time and she was happily playing with the water in-between tries. If your kids are older you can challenge them: can you make a device that will replicate “milking a cow” so you can fill up a cup in less than a minute. You can later time them and see who’s design is most efficient and who can “milk” the fastest! At the end of the post you will find more fun ideas to play with your new creation.

Preparation And Design Suggestions

Lay out all the materials and place a bucket full of water for testing out your design. There are different levels of design:

Your kids do all the designing, creating, testing and improvements. This is perfect to give kids a feeling for the engineering design process
You give some tips/suggestions to help with the designing, they create, test and improve by themselves
You give tips and help with the creation, let them test by themselves and suggest improvements

I will now explain materials and preparation starting from level 1. If you want to give it a go without suggestions just check out the materials and then skip to the follow-up games and activities!

Materials

Balloons
Rubber bands
Toothpicks
Masking tape
Funnel
Bucket for water

For toddlers you will basically be making the device yourself but can involve them in little tasks like putting the scotch tape on or wrapping the rubber band around. Talk to them about the process and then you can test your device together and redesign if necessary.

Suggestions:

You will need to make sure that the connection between balloon and funnel is a sealed as possible to prevent water from leaking
The placement of the holes is important! Don’t make random holes in the balloon
Learn where to hold the balloon before squeezing to get as much water out as possible

Step-by-Step Milking Device:

Step 1: Using the toothpick, make holes in the balloon. Make the holes at the bottom at the balloon so the water squirts out well enough to keep the flow of water. Make enough holes to keep the water flowing properly.

Step 2: Insert the funnel into the balloon and make sure to seal it with scotch tape or/and a rubber band. The deeper you insert the funnel into the balloon the better.

Step 3: Fill the funnel with water and learn how to “milk”. Place your hand on the funnel-balloon connection and squeeze down. Is it better to squeeze fast or slow?

Follow-up Games and Activities

Here are some fun suggestions of how you can play with your new milking device! These are definitely activities you can do outside when it’s hot and you don’t mind getting a bit wet. It wouldn’t be fun to stay dry anyway 🙂

Milking Race: set up a race to see who can fill up a container faster
Timed Milking: can you fill up a cup before the timer runs up?
Who can squirt water the farthest: make a line on the floor and see who can reach it
Color Mixing: Prepare a color mixing station and experiment
Animal Cleaning Station: give all your animals a shower and wash them off (make a competition out of it?)

To finish up you can talk with your kids about their new creation. What could you use your new design for in real-life? From washing the car/dishes with it, giving the dog a bath, painting with it… it could have many applications! Let your kids think of some fun uses that their new invention could have!

So there you go! A fun activity for the whole family that encourages children to think like an engineer. Create and explore through play and most important of all… have fun with it!

Happy STEM learning!

String Rainbow Art Project: Explore Shapes With String

String art is such a great way to practice fine motor skills and sneak in some math skills. It is also a lovely project that involves creativity and can keep your kids entertained creating something beautiful. Using rainbow colored yarn/string gives it that extra touch of color! But unfortunately we did not have this at home which gave us the perfect chance to expand the project and practice some DIY and color mixing! Replacing materials with stuff you have at home is a great practice for resourcefulness and modeling this for your kids is a great way to teach them to work with the resources they have. So in this post I will explain how we prepared some rainbow colored string and will then describe the string art project itself.

Rainbow String Preparation

We didn’t have any rainbow colored yarn or string at home, but we did have food coloring so I thought we could try and color some string with it. The results were not exactly the same as the store-bought one but it added a new layer to the project and it was also fun to do!

Materials

Food coloring
Plastic cups or containers
Water
String or yarn

Coloring String

Prepare the cups with water and food coloring. We poured about 2-3 fingers of water into the cups and squirted some food coloring into it until we got a color we liked. Perfect time to practice color mixing! We ended up with seven cups: blue, purple, green, red, orange, yellow and black. Next we added the string to the cups, we kept the string connected and just used each color once. You could probably go back and forth, feel free to experiment! Then leave the string to soak up the colorful water. In our case we left it a couple of days, our string took a very long time to soak up the water, but we kept checking it once in a while. This is how the preparation and what the end result looked like:

Once the string was out and drying we used the colored water to play a bit, stretching this project out even more! We combined colors and poured them into different containers which is quite entertaining for toddlers. Once the rainbow string is dry you can start the string art project!

String Rainbow Art Project

Materials

Some sort of base: wood, corkboard…
Nails, toothpicks (make one side blunt if they are both pointy!), or straight pins
Rainbow string or yarn
Hammer if you use nails and wood

String Art Project

**Younger children should be supervised around pins, toothpicks, and nails, which have sharp points and are choking hazards.**

The first step in this project is to create a grid. Grab your base and place the nails/toothpicks/pins to make a grid. If you are using a corkboard you might want to double it up if it is too thin. We actually used an old corkboard that we didn’t want to cut up and just placed it over open boxes to give the toothpicks space to go through. Find what works for you.

For the grid, depending on your child’s age you could let them measure and mark the grid points themselves or mark them beforehand. Have your kids place one nail/toothpick/pin on each grid point. Use a smaller grid for younger kids and increase the size for older kids. My daughter enjoyed placing the toothpicks more than playing with the string!

Once the grid is set up, allow some free play. Explain to your kids how to weave the string and give them some time to experiment weaving the string and see what happens. You might need to help toddlers and guide the string with them a bit. It is the perfect time to talk about shapes that appear as they play with the string. This is definitely enough for toddlers. They practice their motor skills and you can talk about the shapes they create as they experiment.

Sneak In Some Math

For older kids, you can try to sneak in some geometry. Start off by asking your kids to create as many different shapes as possible. Then you can challenge their mind a bit! Here are some suggestions:

On a 3×3 grid, how many (same size) triangles can you fit into a square? What about a 4×4 grid?
On a 4×4 grid, how many (same size) rectangles can you fit into a square?

Divide a shape up into smaller shapes (check out the photo below) and then ask your kid how many squares/triangles/rectangles they see. Ask them to do the same for you.

Playing around with shapes like this is great to give kids a feeling for geometry and even fractions!

Time For Creativity

Once your kids have played around with the string and explored the world of shapes, you can ask them to create their own design if they are still interested. To do so, draw the grid on paper first and ask them to draw something (a heart, a star…). To replicate the design with string use nails/toothpicks/pins to create the outline of your design. Then weave the string through them. Experiment with different designs and create some beautiful string art!

Hope you can spend some quality time together as a family discovering string art and exploring shapes!

More Fun Activities and Games:

Make sure to Bookmark the Stay At Home STEM post which will be updated with all our fun STEM activities that are perfect for doing at home.

Happy STEM learning!

DIY Math Game with Playdough

Playdough is such a versatile, fun toy. My daughter loves playing with it. We make food for her stuffed animals and dolls, we make them into balls and organize colors, she ends up just mixing all of them but that’s fun for her too! We were playing the other day and together we prepared a little game for her. She had fun and I was inspired! I love having these moments 🙂 So after she was done playing I decided I could build on the little game and make it into a fun DIY math game for older children (my daughter just turned 2 as I write this).

This is a great game you can use to help your children with pre math skills, patterns, and colors. Handling the little balls of playdough will stimulate their fine motor skills especially in early childhood. It is also made out of things you probably have at home, it is easy and takes less than 10 minutes to prepare. As a bonus, it is very easy to transport and you can take it on trips or any place you might need to wait for a while. I will start by describing the DIY part of the game and then suggest a few ways you can play. Feel free to invent your own games too!

Materials you will need:

This is such a short list! For this game you will need:

Playdough: commercial one or DIY one (there are some great recipes online, for example: https://www.diynatural.com/homemade-playdough-recipe/ )
Egg carton: we used a 6-egg one because we don’t have that many colors but you could also use a 12-egg one

Preparation of the Math Game:

Start by choosing the 6 colors you will use. Then, using a little bit of playdough, squeeze a piece of each color into each egg-holder space until it’s flat against the bottom. Then make 10 balls that you can put into the top part of the egg carton. That’s it! It should look something like this:

The Math Game:

Time to play! Ask your child to collect a certain number of balls. You do this by getting balls and putting them into the corresponding egg-holder. Once you collect them all, you ask your child to create a pattern. I suggest having your own set of playdough balls and starting the pattern and let your child follow it or copy it. Depending on your child’s age they can then count them all together or add the different colors.

Other Ways of Playing:

There are a few other ways you can use this game, feel free to adapt/invent additional fun games to suit your children:

Sensory play: Ask your child to close their eyes and put some balls in the egg carton. Hide the remaining balls. Your child can then open their eyes, shake the box, and try to guess how many balls are inside. Depending on your child’s age you can then open the egg carton up and count them or you can show them the remaining balls and they have to subtract. Changing from a visual to a more acoustic setting requires more thoughtfulness from the child. It’s a great exercise to try to control their impulsive behaviour and deal with external distractions. Even if it is just for a short period of time.
Color and memory: Start with one ball of each color on the table and ask your child to look at them closely and then close their eyes. Put one ball in the egg carton and ask your child to open their eyes and guess what color is missing. You can increase the difficulty by hiding more than one color. What seems at a first glance relatively easy will turn out challenging for the mind of the child. One or two missing colours will be hard to identify for toddlers. What may seem simpple for us, requires a lot of attention and concentration in the early years of our life.

Hope you enjoyed this fun and simple game and that your children have fun with it. Let me know in the comments if you or your children came up with other fun ways to use this DIY game.

For more information about STEM and how to transform your STEM activities at home, check out these posts:

Check out other fun STEM activities to sneak in some STEM learning:

Happy STEM learning!