Toddlers - our senses Archives - Let their light shine!

Scented flower craft for 3 year olds

This is a scented flower craft for 3 year olds to make. It’s ideal for young children and makes a lovely take home picture at toddler group. There is some preparation needed but it’s worth the effort!

Scented flower craft for 3 year olds

Materials needed for flower craft

Flower shapes printed onto coloured card or heavy paper (you want a weight of paper or card that will be easy for you to cut out and also heavy enough for the scent to be sprayed on to it and still keep it’s shape)
Green card cut into strips for the flower stalks.
Green card cut into leaf shapes
Coloured background paper
Glue sticks – we used these

Step by step instructions for scented flower craft for 3 year olds

Do all your prep beforehand – print flower shapes, cut stems and leaves. Lightly spray a scent over the flower shapes and leave to dry.
On the day lay your craft table with a PVC cloth
Put the flowers, stalks and leaves in separate shallow containers (don’t put everything out at once, keep some back to top up for toddlers who come to the craft table later in the toddler group session)
Remove glue stick lids and put out of the reach of toddlers
Have an example made and display
Let the children choose the colours and number of flowers for their own craft creations.

Scented flower craft preparation

Cheap body spray to make scented flower craft

Spray card flowers with a scent

What children can learn in making a scented flower craft

Young children can learn about colour – encourage lots of chatting about naming the colours of the flowers, favourite colours, matching colours.

Fine motor skills are developed through the use of glue sticks and handling the craft materials

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I encourage a reluctant 3 year old to make craft?

This can be tricky. Model the behaviour you would like to see. Make a flower craft yourself, ask your 3 year old to help you choose the colours. Keep the activity short though and if you only stick one flower take it as a win and tell your 3 year old how pleased you are that you made something together.

Links to other crafts suitable for 3 year olds

Black paper collage is a super easy craft to prepare and looks stunning.

This post all about Exploring Colour with Toddlers has lovely ideas for colour filled craft activities to help 3 year olds experience making with colour.

For more flower themed craft take a look at this post about Beautiful Flowers

Finally some Creation Bible Story Crafts for Toddlers are in this post – including some flowers!

Our five senses craft

All you need for these crafts ….

Sugar paper, glue, pictures cut from catalogues and magazines, felt, feathers, satin type fabric, wool, ribbon, stars, pictures of birds singing, pictures of musical instruments and paper plates. For ‘Things I like to smell’ spray the pictures with perfume beforehand. (If you can have some real items for the children to smell – lemons, herbs and sweetpeas are all good. For ‘Things I like to hear’ it would be great to have a table of musical instruments for the children to use.) I also used printed labels, ‘Things I like to… smell/taste/see/touch or hear’.

Label (3×8) ‘Things I like to taste’

Label (3×8) ‘Things I like to smell’

Label (3×8) ‘Things I like to see’

Label (3×8) ‘Things I like to hear’

Label (3×8) ‘Things I like to touch’

Thank you God for my nose..

For the Bible story we used Luke 7:36-46. This is a difficult story to tell as it probably seems strange to us that someone would anoint a persons feet. You need to explain that in those days people would wash their feet when they went into a home as they would be dusty and hot. But when Jesus went for a meal at this man’s house he wasn’t given any water to wash his feet. Explaining this helps to make sense of what happens when the woman pours the expensive ointment or perfume on Jesus’ feet. The man didn’t really like Jesus all that much but the woman knew that he could forgive her and she showed how grateful she was.

I used a story bag to tell the story- the perfume bottle is a miniature dove moisturiser!

The craft was perfume pictures – collect lots of collage material – tissue paper shapes, wool etc and beforehand spray with perfume. Put in a sealed container until needed. The collage material is then used to make pictures that are scented. I had some flower pot and flower shapes left over from a previous craft but you could use any shapes. It’s the scent that you want!

Alternative craft with playdough idea can be found here and an alternative story idea and craft here

all about me – I can smell!

Young children have lots of discoveries to make. It’s fun to help them discover their senses. There are different activities that can show them that they can smell. Of course they already knew that! We can help them know what the smells are that they like or dislike. Sometimes a smell gives us a warning – the toast is burning! Sometimes a smell can make us hungry.

There is a bible Story that you can tell to illustrate that we can smell here. There is a different retelling in the Go Teach Toddler book that we are using this half term.

For a craft for this Bible Story make a perfume bottle

You need – paper plate cut into a simple bottle shape (we are going to use the reverse side so the bottle looks more 3D)

Coloured paper that has been sprayed with perfume. I used tissue paper circles that I bought from Tiger.

Glue stick

Crayons to add decoration. (optional)

Beforehand cut out the bottles, spray the paper and make an example.

I have been cutting some herbs from my garden for the children to smell – these herbs are child friendly – sage, lemon balm, thyme and lavender. The lemon balm is a strong scent in particular. If you don’t have herbs in your garden you could use the fresh herb pots that supermarkets sell. Just a few would be fine.

Playdough can be given a scent. I’ve used vanilla extract (expensive) in one dough and mixed spice in another. Take a look at my pinterest playdough board for some really good ideas. I like the sound of lemon dough. 🙂 there is a recipe for that on the board.

My favourite smell is fresh coffee but sadly at our group we only serve instant!

Thank you God book – for toddler group

Over the past term at our Toddler Group we have made a ‘thank you God book’ – this is an overview of what we did

Title page ‘our thank you God book’

Then the following pages – with pictures added from google images. Each page was A3 and was laminated.

‘I am wonderfully made’ Psalm 139 verse 14

Hands can .. clap, wave, touch, catch

Thank you God for my hands

Tabitha used her hands to help others

Feet can … run, jump, walk, tip toe

Thank you God for my feet

Zacchaeus used his feet to run to see Jesus

Noses can.. rub, smell, breathe

Thank you God for my nose

Mary gave the special perfume to Jesus. It smelt beautiful.

Mouths can … shout, eat and drink, sing, speak

Thank you God for my mouth

Ears can listen to … whispers, shouts, songs

Thank you God for my ears

The children shouted ‘Hosanna’. Everyone heard.

Eyes can.. blink, see colours, close, open

Thank you God for my eyes

Jesus died. Then he came alive again. Lots of people saw him.

For the first 6 weeks we went through the parts of the body – so we just did hands can .. thank you God for my hands etc. The children were able to do the different actions.

Then for the next 5 weeks we reviewed/repeated what we had done but added a short bible story. We combined ears and mouths for a week as they fitted so well with the story of palm sunday. The children were able to shout Hosanna and everyone could hear them!

The pictures are just to give you an idea of what we did – they were more of a visul aid for the adults as we had actions for the children to do. I find it really helpful to have something visual to refer to just in case i forget what I’m meant to say!

Easter decorations – eggs and more eggs

Easter decorations – eggs and more eggs, some to decorate and some to eat!

It’s very straightforward to make salt dough eggs but you do need to do this ahead as the dough shapes need to dry out.

To make them you need to start with a salt dough. This is very easy. You need

2 cups plain flour,
I cup of salt
I cup of water (add this gradually as you may not need it all).
Kneed the dough on a floured surface and roll out to about 4mm thick. As you do this keep making sure it isn’t sticking to the work top. To make an egg shape I used a template and cut around it. You could also use an egg shaped biscuit cutter.
If you are making hanging decorations you need to make a hole for the thread about 1cm away from the edge. Then leave the shapes to dry. They will air dry, but it will take a long time (48 hours plus)
Alternatively, put them in a low oven, not more than 100C, for up to 4 hours. (They can burn so keep an eye on them). Once dry you can paint them as I did or leave them plain for children to decorate.

Roll out the salt dough

Use a template or cutter to make egg shapes

Cut out

Pierce a hole about 1cm away from the edge

Leave to dry out – the shapes should be solid after 48 hours.

Paint using poster paint

Decorate and add yarn to make a loop

Children of almost any age can decorate these simple egg shapes. We used them at toddler group with pre-schoolers, but they would be great for older children who would be able to do more intricate designs or pictures.

We used felt tips to decorate but you could also glue coloured paper on to them and add glitter! A covering of PVA glue at the end will add a shine – but as you can see in the pictures the colours may run a bit.

I loved this craft and my own children had a really good time using up the left over eggs later on at home.

Lots of chocolate eggs to give as Easter gifts

Our Easter Story in toddler group focused on the people who saw Jesus alive again. We reviewed what we had learnt about our eyes first and then the story was told about Jesus dying but coming back to life again.

Links to these stories and other ideas for celebrating Easter –

Thank you God for our eyes – part of our ‘Thank you God’ series

The Easter Story

Palm Sunday – Palm leaf craft

Easter is nearly here! In toddler group we have been learning about being ‘Wonderfully made’ and have already talkied about our mouths that shout, whisper and taste’ and our ears that can ‘hear shouts and whispers’. The Bible story that we are using to develop this is the Palm Sunday story that we read in Luke 19:29-40, Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-10, John 12:12-15. In these accounts people shouted ‘Hosanna!’ and everyone heard. The story will be told simply and the children will be encouraged to shout ‘Hosanna’ in the appropiate places!

The above craft is palm leaf shapes for the children to decorate using chalk, felt tip and wax crayons. I prefer wax crayons rather than the plastic variety as they blend and make a better mark on the paper.

The word Hosanna means ‘Save please’ and also ‘Salvation has come.’ Take a look at what John Piper has to say about Hosanna!

Our Amazing bodies! – our mouths

At toddler group we’ve been learning about our amazing bodies during story time. This week it’s the turn of our mouths. We think about two things in the story, songs and craft – we use our mouths to speak and we use them to eat. Our focus is, ‘I am wonderfully made’.

Story time- our amazing bodies – our mouths

In the story time we are using a Bible verse, ‘I am ..wonderfully made.’ Psalm 139:14. (We left out the word fearfully just because the children are so young.) This week we are thinking about our mouths – how we use our mouths to talk to each other. We can SHOUT and whisper. We talk about eating with our mouths too – thus the craft.

Song time

In our song time we’ll sing, ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’ very quietly, ‘Row, row, row your boat – with a scream for the crocodile, ‘Horsey, horsey don’t you stop’ with the clip, clop sound effects and ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’.

Craft time

This is the craft to go with the theme. The children at toddler group are 3 years old and under and their parent/carer usually sits with them at the craft table – this is an opportunity for lots of chat about the different food.

To do this all you need are – paper plates, pictures of food either from magazines or from the web printed and cut out and glue sticks. Choose food that is familiar and a mixture of fruit and veg and the less healthy but yummy – in this case a cup cake. I avoided meat as I know we have children who wouldn’t be allowed certain meats.

Note – don’t put everything out on the craft table at once or some children won’t have anything left to use. Have a pencil handy so parents/carers can write the child’s name on their plate but don’t leave this on the table. I did a few weeks ago and one child had a lot of fun drawing lines on all the paper!

You could do this with older children. Use smaller pictures all on one page and get them to do the cutting out. They can select what they would like for their plate.

Enjoy!