This morning I had an impromptu exercise in “play.”  I am calling it “making spiral berry soup” because that is what my four-year-old said he was doing.  As you can see I gave them some cups of two different dried beans and pasta, several utensils and containers, and then I just let them have fun.  They had the best time, and I was happy that the toddler did not put the ingredients in his mouth or dump all of it onto the floor. (Though a lot of it did end up on the floor.)

I got this idea from two things:  1) For the hundredth time this morning, my toddler got into the dog food.  I could tell he just wanted to have fun scooping it up and dumping it, etc.  2) When he did that, I remembered the teacher in my four-year-old’s Creative Play and Movement class telling me that my son loved the exercise when they played make-believe with dried beans and pasta.  She said kids love to feel the different textures.  So I thought I’d recreate that for the two of them.

I have let my four-year-old play with the dried beans and pasta before and create some art with it, but I didn’t want to get out the glue with the toddler.  This was just as fun.

We’ll have to do this more often.