Yesterday, I shared with you how the children enjoyed making AB patterns with gumdrops for the letter “Gg” week in pre-kindergarten. Another activity the pre-kindergarten children loved was making gumdrop sculptures and designs…
The teacher set out a bunch of gumdrops and toothpicks. Â Other than showing the children how they can connect two gumdrops together with the toothpicks, there were no other instructions involved. The children just went to work…
It was such a pleasure observing the children work with the gumdrops. The children ended up with all kinds of wonderful designs…
And the children stayed engaged for a very long time. Â This little boy told me he was making lollipops. He just kept putting one toothpick in each gumdrop and setting on his paper plate then he would do it again. In the end, he decided he wanted to taste one but when he went to bite it, the toothpick broke off into the gumdrop. This really surprised him and me – so I suggested to just eat a gumdrop or two that hadn’t been part of our play and didn’t have any toothpicks in them and he happily obliged!
This was not only a creative experience but this was also a great work out for our fine motor skills!
Some of the children kept their gumdrop creations on the paper plates – working within the boundary of their paper plates….
Other children quickly opted to get rid of the paper plate and spread out across the table…
Some of the children (like the little boy with the lollipops) preferred to work alone and others enjoyed collaborating with each other…
As the gumdrop designs or sculptures began to take shape, many of the children began to give their creations a name like “lollipop, necklace, stars, ferris wheel!” Â I just preferred to call them all AMAZING!!