Wind and Sand

Wind and Sand

Activity: Flutter Tree

Take a streamer or piece of string and hang it from the tree. Watch it flutter. Can you hear it when it moves.

Activity: Bubble Chase

Blow bubbles for your toddler. Can he catch or stomp on them? Watch them fly!

Activity: Dancing with Scarves

Using a scarf or ribbon, dance to the music. What happens to the scarf if you stand still? Does it move? What happens when you run?

Activity: Streamer Tag (outside)

Every person gets a streamer. Try to grab a streamer from someone while not getting your streamer taken away.

Activity: Wind Chimes

Make a wind chime by hanging various items from a hanger. Try spoons, aluminum pie tins, bark, shells, seeds, etc. Make one out of kitchen items and another of things from nature. Do they sound different?

Activity: Streamer Zone (inside)

Tape 3-5 foot crepe paper streamers onto a hula hoop. Turn on a fan. Try to catch them. Watch the streamers dance. Move like they do.

Activity: Wind Walk

How can we tell if wind is blowing?
How does it feel?
What does it sound like?
What does it look like?
Go to another location. Now answer the same questions.

Activity: Wind Sack

Poke several holes through the bottom of a shopping sack. Attach several ribbons to the bottom of a plastic shopping bag. Tie one end of a 10-inch string to one handle, then the other end of the string to the other handle. Holding on to the string and run with the wind. The sack acts a little like a kite.

Activity: What is the wind? Group Activity

  1. Pretend to be the wind.
  2. Leader and parents blow up the balloon while the children pretend to blow up a balloon.
  3. Listen to the air escape
  4. Feel the air escape
  5. Tie off the balloon when you are ready
  6. Try to keep the balloon off the ground by blowing it
  7. Try to keep the balloon off the ground by palming it

Activity: You’re Windy

Can you blow a feather across the table? Cotton balls, paper, flower petals, leaves, etc. What about a rock? Discuss terms like light and heavy with your tot. Use feathers purchased from a craft store.

Activity: Is Air There?

Place tiny pieces of paper in a small fishbowl. Blow gently through a straw and watch the paper fly. Ask your tot to try to blow through the straw.

Activity: I’ll Huff and Puff

Blow on your tot’s hand. How does it feel? Now blow through a straw onto your tot’s hand. Does the air feel different? When your breath is forced into a narrow space of a skinny straw, it moves very quickly. This gives your breath a great strength. It becomes powerful enough to move objects clear across the floor. Try to blow the objects provided across the finish line on the table.

Activity: Run like the Wind

Paste strips of newspaper, streamers or ribbons to a paper headband. Now run like the wind.
How do you feel? How do the streamers sound?

Activity: You are the Wind

Ask your tot to pretend to be the wind. “What do you sound like?” “What do you look like?” Tell your tot that you are going to pretend to be a tree. “What happens when the wind blows at me, the tree?” Take turns being the wind. What else does the wind blow?

Fingerplay

I went walking one fine day,
The wind was strong that gusty day.
It blew my hair right in my face,
Leaves whirled and swirled ‘most every place.
I listened to it how and wail,
That wild, windy, gusty gale.

Activity: Dumping and Filling

Simply sit with your tot and play with the sand next to her, modeling different things to do with sand and the sand toys. Can you find anything in nature that can be used in a sandbox too?

Activity: Alphabet Sand

Fill a pie tin or small tray with salt, cornmeal or fine sand. Draw lines, shapes, letters, numbers, or pictures in the sand. Have your tot trace it. Can he duplicate it? Show him how to make handprints or footprints. What if you use a stick? A rock? A leaf?

Activity: Treasure Hunt

Gold stones have been hidden in a marked area. Dig for them. Count them. When you find them, hide them for someone else.

Activity: Sand Combs

Cut combs out of cardboard. Use different shapes for the ‘teeth’ of the comb. Rake them through the sand. What could you use them for?

Activity: Sandbox Town

Using kitchen tools, food cartons, rocks, leaves, and sticks, create a town. What could you sue for a car? People? Pets? Roads?

Activity: Sand Art

Let your tot ‘color’ with a glue stick on a piece of paper. Mix sand or salt with food coloring. Sprinkle the colored sand onto paper. Dump the extra sand back into your sand container and save until next time.

Snack

Cinnamon sugar graham crackers and juice.

At home: use a large tube of frosting to join the crackers together to make a sand castle. Use sugar ice cream cones to make the top. Decorate with candy if you like.

Activities provided by:

E Resources Group
2550 Stagecoach Road
Webster City, Iowa 50595-7375
Toddling on the Wild Side was supported by the REAP-CEP grant program.

Age:
_ 0-1
✓ 1-2
✓ 2-3
_ 3-4
_ 4-5
_ 5-6

Category: Adult-Child

Time:
30 minutes

Season:
spring, summer, fall

Iowa Early Learning Standards:
1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.4, 3.3, 3.4, 4.2, 4.3, 5.3, 5.4, 6.2, 6.3, 7.3

Related Kindernature Resources: