Investigate - tracks

This little activity happened by accident.  I had a few things at the counter and it just kind of came together.  I bought these wooden magnify glasses at Target in their dollar section.  They look like a frog, a bee and a lady bug.  We have been using them a lot to investigate bugs, worms, plants and flowers in the backyard.  I have to say, they aren't necessarily the best quality, however, using them seems to help get the boys to stop and look a little closer at things. Even if the magnify glass doesn't really work all that well.

Lachlan was holding it this way to show me the flower.

Next we had play-dough at the counter and our farm animals.  Grandma and Grandpa S purchased a collection of farm animal figures from Schleich and every time they came to visit would bring one more animal for each boy.  Now we have a full and very awesome collection that there is no way we could have afforded on our own.  They go perfectly with our Fold & Go Barn by Melissa and Doug.  Here is a link to one of the cows we have Simmental Cow.

What's great about these animals is that they have accurate footprints.  Not all of them but most of them.  So I made him close his eyes while I pressed the horses hooves into the play-dough.  Then set out 4 or 5 different animals for him to investigate and figure out which one had made the tracks in the play-dough.

Lachlan had a lot of fun with this but his attention span didn't last long. He quickly moved on to using the animals to make his own tracks in the dough.  We will try it again someday soon.