Growing Gardens – Moles and Crows

Fun Games with Mother Goose Time

All is well and good in the garden until some pesky visitors arrive. But wait!, some helpful creatures are also on the way! This week we looked at moles, crows, rabbits, toads and bees and their helpful and hindering affects on gardens.

We played two fun games surrounding two such pesky critters.

MOLES :

K, I know that moles are considered pests and I’ve heard of them digging up beautiful front lawns but I admit that my picture of the impact of moles was somewhere stuck in Winni the Pooh land and a cute little lispy mole borrowing around at sonic speed. So, when I asked the kids what moles do and how they can affect the garden, I was surprised at their responses.

My ‘M’ girl didn’t even know what a mole was but Mr. ‘T’ chimed right in, ‘Moles just do dig in the garden and eat all of the vegetables.’ What a clever little one.

We then talked about how sometimes Moles eat the roots of plants too and discussed now that might effect the plant.

Mole Maze Game -

Game – exploring garden pests through colour play.

This game had us each selecting a character piece (either mole, crow, rabbit or toad). We talked about why each of these little critters might be trouble in a garden or why they might visit a garden. We created a dice and took turns rolling and advancing to the closest colour vegetable that matched the colour we had rolled. The ‘stay in the same spot’ (rainy day) and ‘roll again’ (sunny day) spot on the dice were NOT super popular. Wanna see a few 3 year olds have a melt down! Tell them that they waited for their turn rolled and they don’t get to move or they have to roll again… umm WHY!? – ha ha

3 year olds are unique creatures that do not like delayed gratification or to have to repeat an action. It had me thinking though that these types of competitive activities are probably important every once in a while for them to explore the concept of rules and boundaries in an activity. After all, 3 year olds are all about fair even if they don’t like it when the downside of fair gets flipped on them.

Playing the 'Animals in the Garden'

What worked about this game for the kids:

They loved selecting a character. Remember when you were a kid and had your favourite monopoly token?

What is it about a choice that, somehow, helps us cement our identity? It was a nice reminder to me work more choices in with the littles.

What worked about the game for me:

Reviewing of colours and shapes can easily become boring and repetitive but, by working review into a game, I found the repetition now had a point cause they were moving their game piece forward.

CROWS:

Scarecrow Game:

Each child had various shapes and were instructed to lay them face down in front of their crow. They took turns turning over cards and feeding them to the crow but WATCH OUT! If they turned over the scarecrow card it meant that their crow was scared away and they had to start all over again.

Feed the Crow!

'M' wanted to be able to match her food with the pictures at the bottom but there wasn't quite enough space.
It was neat to watch her organize her space while she 'worked' and see her little personality and need for order come out. ~ Someone's just like her Mama ; )  ~

What worked about this game for the kids:

The initial reaction to turning over the scarecrow was that sinking feeling of loss but that feeling is so easy to turn around into something fun. I made loud crowing sounds as I flipped the food of the crow each time they encountered the scarecrow. Instant laughter! Now they almost looked forward to getting the scarecrow. Changing your perspective can make even losing fun. The loud crowing and flipping the food off the crow way into the air was the funnest aspect of the game for the kids.

What worked about this game for me:

I really like that this game incorporated counting. The kids would count up their food pieces that they fed the crow to see how many they could get before the scarecrow was flipped over. I also really liked that the competition was against themselves rather than each other. They were just trying to keep playing the game to beat their own number of how many pieces of food they could feed the crow.