Some friends of ours recently gave Minnie a selection of plastic animals which she's loved playing with. She's been particularly interested in the wild animals, so we thought we'd create an area for them to explore.
We collected a garden seed tray & filled it with a layer of sand to create a dry, dusty base. To make a watering hole we used a clean empty food tray, filled with water & added a few stones to decorate, these also helped hold the tray in place. For a small muddy area around the watering hole we mixed a little soil with the sand.
To make some tumbleweed we used dry cut grass rolled into a ball, this made some neat edging for the tray too. We added some small sticks & small dry branches of rosemary & lavender to help create an arid landscape. (Any dry plants from the garden are perfect for this)
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| The cubs playing with tumbleweed |
To provide some shady spots for the animals we added a couple of branches covered with small green leaves & placed in an archway near our watering hole.
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| Our shady spot produced some great shadows |
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| The branches were perfect for giraffes to grab a bite to eat! |
All the animals had to have a drink & Minnie produced the sound effects!
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A monsoon hit yesterday when Minnie's wateringcan appeared, but the animals seemed quite happy... & Minnie discovered they made great paw prints in the wet sand! :)
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| Then the rain came! |
Minnie is clearly showing a real interest in this group of animals. She's played with the safari set every day, & yesterday she independently found a book (which we had collected from a zoo visit a year ago) & began matching the toy animals to the photos of the animals in the book. I wonder where Minnie's exploration will take us next...
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