Winter Fairy Garden ~ Educational and Fun Activity

Disclosure, please use your discretion with age and maturity when using this activity with your child. Please monitor young children with the small pieces.

Izzy had an absolute blast creating her Party’n With Plants Winter Fairy Garden and I’m pretty sure your littles will too! Oh and if you are worried you can’t keep a succulent alive, you can chose a fake plant. There are so many educational components in this activity and I broke it all down for you. I was super fun & sensory experience. This simple activity will allow you to work on new concepts that can help facilitate developmental growth. I added developmental outcomes below so you can see what areas to scaffold your child in.

If you are reading this and it’s no longer fall… lucky for you, there are multiple fairy garden themes.

1. Open The Box

Pull all the items from your fairy garden box out and lay them out on the table. Let your child explore everything that came and explain each thing as they point to it, ask questions or make comments. It’s very important to not rush into creating the bowl, but giving them time to see each item in the box. For some children it may be best to pull 1 item out at a time. Build on their language by discussing colors, textures, sizes and positional words (i.e. “We are putting this in the bowl first.”).

Developmental Learning Outcomes:

Language: Gaining new positional word vocabulary such as, in/out, before/after & first/next/last. Depending on the child’s age they may also be learning new colors, adjectives, and how to ask questions or explain what they see.

Cognitive: Gaining math skills such as counting and sorting the different bags. I.e. “These two have moss, this one has snow etc.”

Physical: Refining fine motor skills while practicing to open the small bags and moving them and the pieces around.

Social & Emotional: Asking for help, building confidence in trying new things, guessing, sharing and turn taking

Sensory Development: Exploring and tolerating touching potentially new items such as moss and dirt.

2. Add The Layers & Decorate

Okay, get the ball rolling! Time to start putting that fairy garden together. Give your child the opportunity to guess which item should go in the bowl first. Allow them the chance to open the bags, its greta fine motor practice. If they can’t try to slightly open the bag and then let them pull it open the rest of the way.

Developmental Learning Outcomes:

Language: Gaining new positional word vocabulary such as, in/out, before/after & first/next/last & seasonal language such as winter, holiday, festive, candy cane, presents & snow. Depending on the child’s age they may also be learning new colors, adjectives, and how to ask questions or explain what they see.

Cognitive: Gaining math skills such as counting and sorting the different bags. I.e. “These two have the decorations, these two have moss.”

Physical: Refining fine motor skills while practicing to open the small bags, pouring them, moving small pieces i.e. the presents, fairy, candy cane etc around on the garden.

Social & Emotional: Asking for help, building confidence in trying new things, guessing, sharing and turn taking.

Sensory Development: Exploring and tolerating touching potentially new items such as moss and dirt.

3. Discuss What Was Created

Say to the child, “Tell me about what you created.” If they need support you can help boost their conversion by talking about what you see. Wait time is important so remember to give them 3-4 seconds to respond (I know, it feels like forever, but children need this!).

Developmental Learning Outcomes:

Language: Gaining new positional word vocabulary and using it appropriately. Positional words: in/out, before/after & first/next/last. Depending on the child’s age they may also be learning vocabulary for new colors, adjectives, and how to ask questions or explain what they see. Ie. “I put two presents behind the fence.” In that sentence the child is showing they have an understanding for positional vocabulary.

Cognitive: Gaining math skills such as counting & sorting. I.e. “I put two presents together” In that sentence the child is showing they can count and sorted, by putting the 2 like objects together.

Social & Emotional: Asking for help, building confidence in trying new things, guessing, sharing and turn taking.

Most importantly I hope you guys had/have fun with this.

XO Eryka