Toddlers are natural gatherers. Show them any sort of object in number and they will probably gather them all up. They will line them up, horde them, talk to them and play with them in ways you never imagined.
Give a young child water and they will splash it and pour it. Give them toy animals and they will talk to them. Give them balls they will throw them and drop them, and give them paint, they will probably stick their hands in it. They do this with (hopefully) no prompting from adults.
One of my favorite things to do with young children is to set out an assortment of supplies and/or objects and see what the children do with it. They rarely do what I imagine they will and the surprise I feel is a great gift of knowledge.
I came to school one day to find the toddler classroom rearranged into a flower shop. Sure enough, the tots gathered up those plastic flowers. They were horded, lined up, placed into bags and cooked in the kitchen. They were stuck into play dough, used as microphones and yes, they were artfully arranged into beautiful bouquets but the young 'uns themselves.
A few weeks later, I filled up the water table with potting soil, added printed Easter eggs, watering pails, seed pots and a bunch of fake flowers.
Gardens were planted, bouquets were given and the kiddos had a great time! Why not add some flower play into the mix?
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