This Vegetable Garden Fine Motor Activity is a fun way to teach kids about gardening, healthy eating, counting, and more. All while they develop fine motor skills and language at the same time.
There’s a lot of learning potential in this one simple posting activity. Get your FREE copy of the vegetable garden printable below and learn how to make your own tissue box veggie patch.
If you want to make your Spring themed lessons a breeze, then check out the Spring Activity Pack. It’s filled with math and literacy centers, arts and crafts templates, as well as more fine motor activities for kids. All of which are aligned with preschool learning standards. Check it out today.
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More Spring Fine Motor Activities
Spring Fine Motor Activities are essential for every Spring themed curriculum. These are some of my favorite play ideas to help toddlers, preschoolers and kindergartners to develop fine motor skills while they play.
Spring Bugs Fine Motor Activity – Turn dot stickers into cute garden bugs. Then stick the bugs onto a toilet roll garden scene. This can be used purely as a fine motor activity for toddlers, or a number matching activity for preschool and kindergarten.
Cut the Grass Activity – This scissors activity gives the kids a wonderful surprise. As they cut the grass (green craft paper), they’ll discover different flowers and insects hiding underneath. The spring scene hiding under the grass comes as a free printable to make this activity easy to prep, even for a large class. Visit the Cut the Grass post to get your free copy.
Bee fine motor activity – This activity starts with bee tongs flying around a garden of cupcake liner flowers. The flowers are filled with yellow rainbow rice which acts as pollen while in the flowers. Transfer the pollen into the beehive and turn it into honey.
For more ideas, visit 20 Spring Fine Motor Activities
Materials Needed
- An empty tissue box
- 20 craft sticks
- Paint or colored paper (to decorate tissue box)
- Stanley knife
- Glue
- Laminator
- Laminating sheet
- Free Vegetable Garden Printable below.
How to Make a Vegetable Garden Posting Activity
Step 1: Print your free copy of the Vegetable Garden Printable
Step 2: Laminate the page and cut out the individual vegetables
Related: Spring Flower Fine Motor Activity Tray – No Time for Flashcards
Step 3: Glue the vegetables onto the tip of the craft sticks.
I used colored craft sticks because at the time that was all I had. But in hindsight, this was a wonderful idea because it reinforced the concept of “eat the rainbow”. In order to have a healthy diet, you need to eat fruits and vegetables in a variety of colors. It also gave us a starting point for discussing the activity.
Related: Fine Motor Flowers Math Tray – No Time for Flashcards
Step 4: Decorate your tissue box.
I used brown paint for the top of the tissue box, and green colored paper for the sides.
I also decided to decorate the green paper with white flowers, however this is completely optional. If you’re feeling creative you can always try making a rabbit down a rabbit hole, or a family of mice instead.
Related: Spring Lacing Cards – Living Life and Learning
Step 5: Use the Stanley knife to cut 20 strips/holes into the top of the tissue box.
These strips only need to be as big as the craft sticks. However, if you would prefer to have larger holes or fewer holes then you absolutely can.
I chose 20 specifically to encourage my kids to count to 20 as they were “planting” their vegetables.
However, you can create this activity with 10 vegetables instead, if you’re working on counting to 10.
Related: Garden Printables for Kids – Teaching Mama
How to play
This activity is very simple. Take a craft stick and put it into one of the holes in the tissue box. Although this activity is very simple it’s a fantastic way to develop fine motor skills and it provides a lot of opportunities for extended learning.
Extended Learning Concepts to explore with the kids.
These are a few examples of different areas to explore with the kids. As well as some sample questions to ask while they’re playing.
Healthy eating
- What color they are?
- How do they taste?
- Why we need to eat them?
- How often should we eat vegetables?
Related: 20 Free Spring Printables
Farming and Gardening
- What do the vegetables need to grow?
- How do they get what they need?
Counting
- How many vegetables do you have?
- Are there more orange vegetables or green ones?
- Let’s count them together.
Sorting
- Sort into different colors.
- Can you sort into vegetables that grow below and above the ground?
- What about sorting into ones I like and ones I’m still getting used to.
Are you going to try this Vegetable Garden Fine Motor Activity with your kids?
Don’t forget to Pin the idea for later.
Vegetable Garden Fine Motor Activity
This Vegetable Garden Fine Motor Activity is a fun way to teach kids about gardening, healthy eating, counting, and more. All while they develop fine motor skills and language at the same time.
Materials
- An empty tissue box
- 20 craft sticks
- Paint or colored paper (to decorate tissue box)
- Stanley knife
- Glue
- Laminator
- Laminating sheet
- Free Vegetable Garden Printable below.
Instructions
- Download and print your free copy of the Vegetable Garden Printable
- Laminate the page and cut out the individual vegetables
- Glue the vegetables onto the tip of the craft sticks.
- Decorate your tissue box.
- Use the Stanley knife to cut 20 strips/holes into the top of the tissue box.
These strips only need to be as big as the craft sticks. However, if you would prefer to have larger holes or fewer holes then you absolutely can.
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