Carrot Planting Bin

Objective: Plant or uproot the carrots and count as you go!

Basic Materials:

A bag of black beans for dirt, toy carrots, tongs and other scooping utensils. The felt and wooden carrots here I found on Etsy. The transparent carrot containers, yarn carrots, and mini pots I grabbed from our local Dollar Store!

How I Interact:

I “planted” the carrots in the “dirt” and encouraged her to pull them up and set them aside counting as she went along. After she counted all the carrots a few times I let her engage with the materials however she saw fit. We tried it in reverse and I attempted to show her to plant them first, but she was more interested in the “uprooting” aspect than in the “planting” of it all. So, to keep in line with letting her interests lead we stuck with just removing them and setting them aside.

Benefits:

This bin is an awesome Spring themed counting opportunity for the littles! It promotes imaginary play, fine motor skills, and language development in naming the items, colors, and counting aloud. Yumi, at 21 months, had a good time pulling the carrots up from the beans and counting as she went along. She then proceeded to take the pots and transfer the beans back and forth, filled the carrot containers with beans and shook them up (much like egg shakers), which made for an added sensory benefit in sound!

For an extension we added a number board and I pointed to the numbers as she said them out loud while uprooting the carrots. Doing so in an effort to build that connection between the numbers and what they look like.