Nature Collage: Sensory Play

I saw a friend post this idea a little while ago on her blog: the Natural Momma in Me, and I knew that I had to try it out with the boy-o too! I really love the idea of making a nature collage and since the boy-o has been staying at Nana and Grandpa's during the day the last month or so, he's been spending tons of time outside in their back garden playing with rocks, plants and dirt so I was pretty sure he would love making it too.

To start off with we wandered around my parents garden collecting little leaves, flowers, petals, and bits of plants with different textures and smells. We made sure to get some lavender because the boy-o really likes to sniff it. One of these days I think he's going to sniff it so hard it'll end up going up his nose... but that's another story.

Once we got home we examined our pile of collected plant bits and I attached some Mack-Tack to our balcony door with the sticky side facing out. This was going to be our canvas for the collage. The boy-o was pretty interested in the sticky feeling and kept trying to pick it up. I showed him how to place the flower bits on the sticky surface to hold them there, and he got down to it!

He had a bit of trouble getting some of the leaves to stick since our Mack Tack was pretty cheap and not as sticky as it could have been, but with a little help we got all of the bits up and completed our wonderful nature collage! When we were all done I took a second piece of Mack Tack and placed it sticky side in so it was like our plant pieces were laminated between the two and now we can hang it up next to some of the boy-o's other masterpieces!

This was a super easy activity, that was not only very cost effective, but there was minimal clean-up required. It provided the boy-o with an opportunity to explore the plants around him though and experience some different textures as well as some different smells. This could be an interesting activity to do once each season and then compare them together to see the different kinds of plant bits you could forage.