Sensory play

Activities, Parenting, Preschool, Sensory Play, Toddlers

Water Beads Sensory Tub

January 11, 2019

One of Rosebud’s stocking stuffers this year was a bottle of water beads. I’ve been seeing these things on early childhood blogs for several years, but have never seen them in person. They always looked so cool and I’ve always wanted to try them, but never had the opportunity with any of my classes. Well, I finally got the chance to play with them with Rosebud and she loved them.

I’m a big fan of sensory play. We do a lot with play-dough, sand or just plain water. There are so many benefits to sensory play and it really captures childrens attention. These water beads are definitely a different sensory experience. The ones we have are a little smaller than the standard sized marbles. They start out about the size of a sprinkle. At first, I thought of a grain of rice, but I think they are even smaller than that. I love dessert and sprinkles was the first thing I thought of. Anyway, they are tiny, but they start expanding soon after you put them in water. I think they were at full size after soaking for about an hour.

I poured a bunch in the tub, added water and when it was ready, I brought it to Rosebud. She loved the different texture. They are squishy and slippery. They can fall easily and role all over the place which makes them more attractive to kids, but makes a bigger mess for us to clean up. I included little scoops and cups, so we did lots of scooping and pouring. We counted how many scoops would fill each cup. We looked through the water beads and discovered that we could see light through them. We saw them bounce off things in the tub. I added a large funnel. The opening was big enough so that one bead would fall through at a time. Rosebud had fun filling the funnel and watching them fall down.

I’m looking forward to playing more with the water beads and tying them into different themes. I also want to look for larger ones. Have you used water beads? What cool things have you done with them? Let me know in the comments.

Here are more links to explore.

10 Ways to Play With Water Beads from Teaching Mama

Exploring Water Bead Science and Sensory Play from Little Bins for Little Hands

Edible Water Bead Sensory Play from A Little Pinch of Perfect

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Activities, Education, Parenting, Preschool, Toddlers, Winter

Gift Giving Sensory Tub

December 7, 2018

This week, I decided to make up a festive sensory tub for Rosebud. I’m calling it the gift giving sensory tub.

What’s in the tub?

Wrapping paper,
Small boxes,
Ribbon,
Bows,
Tissue paper,
Bells,
Snowman rings,
Sparkly pompoms,
A bulb shaped ornament that opens,
A gift bag
A small stocking.

Today was the first time Rosebud got to play with this tub and she played for almost an hour. I had to tare her away for bath time. She loved filling the gift bag, putting the items in the different sized boxes and trying to wrap them. We pretended to give each other gifts. She’d open a box of snowman rings and say, “thank you Mommy. This was the best gift ever.” Then I’d open a gift bag full of pompoms and tell her what a nice gift she gave. If you are working on sharing and kindness, this would be a great sensory tub for the theme.

We worked on math skills by counting the number of pompoms in a box. We used our listening skills to guess what was inside the boxes. We discovered that we can always tell when one of the bells were in the boxes, but we could only hear the pompoms depending on the size and style of the box. Rosebud folded wrapping paper and tried to tie ribbon to practice those fine motor skills.

If your child is a little older, you could include tape so they could practice actually wrapping presents. I did not include tape because I knew it’d be everywhere. I’d love to add more ribbon of different sizes, other Christmas and winter themed trinkets for a wider variety of gifts and child scissors to cut wrapping paper. If you’ve tried something similar or have a festive sensory tub of your own, tell me in the comments.

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Activities, Education, Parenting, Preschool, Toddlers, Winter

First Snowfall Sensory Tub

November 20, 2018

We had our first real snowfall on Friday. When Rosebud woke up, she was so excited to see snow. Unfortunately, both of us have been fighting off colds for the past few weeks so I’ve only taken her out a couple of times since the weekend. However, I figured why not bring some snow inside to play with? I don’t have to stand outdoors and freeze and she gets to play with snow. An almost perfect compromise.

Here’s what I put in this sensory tub.

Snow,
Acrylic crystals,
Glass stones,
Safari Ltd Penguins
Scoops and a shovel,
Small cups.

The stones and acrylic crystals were our treasures. She liked those the best. Digging in the snow and watching it fly everywhere.

She loved finding the different penguins.

Of course, those scoops and shovels were used to dig and uncover those treasures. Not to mention the added benefits of getting snow all over mommy. It was the perfect snow to make snowballs and we found out that when we put it into the little containers, the snow would be shaped like them when we took it out. We watched how snow melted and how we could put it together and break it apart.

It’s play, it’s science and it’s fun on a winter day. What are some of your favorite winter activities? Let me know in the comments.

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Activities, Art, Gift Giving, Parenting, Recipes, Toddlers

Salt Dough Keepsakes

November 11, 2018

I wanted to come up with an inexpensive and creative gift for my mother’s birthday. I also wanted Rosebud to be involved in making it so I decided to see what we could create with salt dough.

Ingredients:

1 cup salt,
2 cups all purpose flour,
1 cup warm water,
A pinch of cinnamon, (Optional)

Food coloring or powder paint. (Optional)

Directions:

1. Mix salt and flour together in a bowl.
If you are using powder paint to add coloring, you’ll want to mix it with the dry ingredients.
I added the pinch of cinnamon at this stage for a hint of scent, but that is totally optional.
2. Gradually add the warm water and stir until dough forms.
If you are using food coloring, add it into the water before mixing with the dry ingredients.
3. Once you have your dough, shape it into a ball and kneed for five minutes. the more you kneed, the softer it gets.
4. Time to have fun and see what you can create.

It took several tries, but I shaped the dough into a flat heart and Rosebud pushed her hand in the center to make the handprint. Trying to get a tired child to do something like this can be pure torture, but after the sixth try, we got our final product. The other handprints were missing fingers, missing part of the hand itself or barely noticeable.

To add some sparkle, I put some glitter on the heart. Finally, I poked two holes in the top so the heart can be hung as a decoration. I used a pencil to get good sized holes.

Next, I worked on the small rose. I roled out a coil for the stem and then made the leaf and rose petals by hand. You role the dough into tiny balls, shape them like a fingerprint and then smooth and bend the pointy ends into the stem. I start out with the outside petals which are larger and then work my way into the smallest center petals.

I baked the decorations for one hour at 200F and covered them with foil to avoid browning. The heart could’ve been baked a bit longer, but it air dried the rest of the way.

When it was cool, I painted them. For the heart and flower, I mixed white paint with a tiny drop of red food coloring. For the stem and leaf, I mixed the white paint with some green food coloring. When the paint was dry, I covered it with a coat of modpoj.

Rosebud was proud to give the birthday gifts and I was happy that we created something together. Have you made anything with salt dough? If so, what are your best creations?

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Activities, Education, Parenting, Toddlers

Five Quiet Activities for Toddlers

October 7, 2018

Anyone who has kids knows that they are loud. They run instead of walk. They think everything is a drum. It could be pots and pans, the ball they were just playing catch with or the kitchen table. On some days, their voice has only one volume, loud! While I love listening to Rosebud’s conversations with herself and enjoy watching her take on life with such energy and enthusiasm, I definitely need a few quiet moments here and there. Here are a few activities that can give you just that. Peace and quiet.

1. Sensory Bottles

These can contain anything. I made this one for Rosebud when she was an infant. I used shells, acrylic jewels, glass marbles and glitter. Fill the bottle with water, ceil the top and your child will have some quiet time looking for and watching the objects floating around. Sensory bottles can be loud depending on what you put in them, but other quiet ideas include pompoms of different colors, sand with shells, foam numbers and letters, or vegetable oil and water which can be interesting because the two substances don’t mix. Sensory bottles can be done in any theme.

Here are some really cool sensory bottles I’ve found.

Slow Falling Beads Sensory Bottle

Ghost Sensory Bottle

Snowman Sensory Bottle

Windy Fall Leaves Sensory Bottle

Glow in the Dark Sensory Bottle

2. Felt Story Boards

Felt boards are great for stories, rhymes and even learning about the seasons. In our preschool room, we had felt parts of a tree and flowers and the kids could make a felt garden. You can use a felt board to work on sight words with letters. They also have felt doll dress up sets.
The Weather Bears Felt Board Set

3. Blocks

You must be thinking that blocks can’t be a quiet activity, but hear me out. Last year, I found some great foam blocks that I gave to Rosebud for Christmas. When she is building alone with these and is concentrating on what she is building, it can be very quiet. The other great thing about this activity is they can do this on their own.

I had to share this image. We were building today and I figured out how to put some of the shapes together to make a heart. I asked Rosebud if I could take a photo of it and she said, “Of course.” Each time I went to take a photo, she’d throw another block in the middle of the heart. On my phone, I have the live photo feature enabled so when I click on it, I see the block being thrown in the middle of the heart.

4. Bubble Wrap

This obviously can be very loud, especially if you have the bubble wrap with larger bubbles, but I have found that the bubble wrap with smaller bubbles is great for small hands. The pops are relatively quiet. If you are watching TV, preparing a meal or are engrossed in a phone conversation, you probably won’t even hear the little pops. This is a great activity for developing those fine motor skills and concentration. After you show them how it works a couple of times, they can do this activity without help.

5. Puzzles

There are lots of puzzles to choose from, but the quietest are foam puzzles. If puzzles are at the appropriate developmental level for your child, they should be able to figure them out on their own. I usually show Rosebud a couple of times and then she gets it. She loves knowing that she can put them together herself. This is also another great activity for developing fine motor skills and concentration.

These activities are great for a nap time when a child doesn’t sleep. They are also great for a quiet corner or for those times when a child is so wound up and needs to relax. What are your favorite quiet time activities for kids? Tell me in the comments.

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Activities, Education, Parenting, Preschool, Sensory Play, Toddlers

Treasures by the Sea Shore Sensory Tub

September 5, 2018

Here’s a simple sensory tub that we’ve been using a lot this summer. I know I’m very late posting this, but there is still plenty of sunshine outside and if you are not ready for fall, then this is for you. It started off as an ocean themed sensory tub, but Rosebud decided that she was a pirate looking for treasures. I’ve used this set up with and without water. She enjoys it either way.

What you’ll need:

Water,

Scoops and or measuring cups,

Mini toy fish,

Seashells,

Glass marbles.

If you are really adventurous, you could add sand for the real seashore experience.

Ideas for play:

Counting marbles or sorting them by color if you use multiple colors. Those were the treasures in our case.

Sort seashells.

Identify types of fish.

Work on fine motor skills with scooping and pouring.

Watch your child using their imagination and see what they come up with.

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Activities, Education, Parenting

Five Benefits of Playing in the Sand

May 7, 2018

I think I can officially say spring has finally come here in the northeast and I’m so excited that we’ve been able to spend plenty of time outside. Just last week, I bought some new sand for Rosebud and refilled the sand box. I threw in some buckets, shovels and molds. It keeps her busy for a while. When I was a kid, I spent hours in the sand box so it’s no surprise that she likes it as well. There are so many reasons to encourage kids to play with sand. Here are five of them.

1. It helps with fine motor skills.

Scooping, pouring, sifting and sculpting the sand helps build strength and is practice for skills they will need later. Not to mention scooping, pouring and measuring can be connected with math concepts.

2. They can be creative.

Sand can go with almost any theme. You can use it for a beach theme with shells, toy fish and rocks. You can use it for an animal theme with logs, toy animals and other natural items. Sand goes with cars and trucks, in an outside kitchen and even in art. Yesterday, Rosebud was pretending to serve ice cream one minute, building a sand castle the next and then decided to look for rocks and other treasures.

3. It’s a sensory experience.

One of the things I hear a lot when people talk about going to the beach is their feet on the sand. It’s part of being connected with nature. I think that urge for kids is even stronger. I work with a lot of kids with special needs. I’m not a big fan of that term, but I’ll use it here to keep things simple. Many of these children find playing in the sand calming. Some children that cannot stay put for even two minutes will stay at the sand tray or sit in the sand box for 20 minutes plus. They are able to immerse themselves into the activity because it is open ended. There are no expectations for what is right or wrong. They can experiment as they wish.

4. It’s scientific.

Sand can be experimented with. It doesn’t always remain in the same state. Rosebud discovered that her sand in the sand box is dry because we keep it covered at night. The sand is fine. It slips through your hands and you can’t sculpt with it. However, we also have this wagon that is full of last years sand that was very wet. It has dried out quite a bit, but it is still wet enough to sculpt with. Rosebud and I were having fun seeing what we could make. We filled buckets and discovered that the sand could be dumped out and keep it’s shape. We could build sand castles that would stay together. We didn’t need a mold. This sand was heavier and stickier. Experimenting and investigating the results is what our little scientists do every day.

5. It’s fun.

Playing in the dirt is fun. Being in nature is fun. Making a huge mess is fun and the best part is most of it stays outside so I don’t have to clean it up. Watching Rosebud enjoy herself was the most fun for me. I think making a mess and seeing what she can do with the sand is the most fun for her. Why not see what happens when we fling sand outside of the sand box? Why not fill the wheelbarrow and dump it in other parts of the yard? Never mind that I just refilled it. Why not try dumping the water bottle in the sand box and see what happens? I drew the line at flinging the sand and dumping the water, but the important thing is spending quality time together. That’s the best thing about our outside time. We are not distracted by the normal things that distract us inside. Do your kids like playing in the sand? Let me know in the comments.

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Education

Too Many Rules

May 3, 2018

Yesterday there was a situation at work that made me wonder if we are putting too many rules on kids play. Is all this nitpicking necessary? Shouldn’t we be focusing on the big picture?

We were out on the playground and I was watching three children who were playing under a dome shaped climber. One of them was pretending that the bars were doors and kept going in and out of the different doors. Meanwhile the other two were playing with a bucket of sand. They were pretending the dome was a store which they go in and out of and were making things for each other. I observed the children taking turns sharing a spoon to stir with, talking to each other about their play and generally getting along and enjoying each others company. Lately I don’t see that many positive social interactions in our classrooms so I was enjoying it. They were sharing, being kind to one another and certainly not harming anyone else.

Generally we insist that they keep sand and all the sand toys in the sand box, but it was only a small bucket of sand and they were playing so nicely that I didn’t want to ruin the moment. Suddenly one of my coworkers came over and got very irritated that they had brought some sand under the climber. She told them to get back in the sand box and demanded to know who had brought the sand over. I told her that they had been playing there nicely for a long time, but didn’t know what else to say to her. She seemed irritated with me for letting them do that, but I feel that positive social interactions and their imaginative play is more important than the fact that there is a little bit of sand outside the sand box. One of the dilemmasis how much and when do you let them experiment and how much do we have to box them in?

At the same time, I understand where she is coming from. The sand box doesn’t get filled often so I understand her wanting to keep the sand in there. I also understand being consistent with rules and maybe if I had noticed when they had originally brought the sand over, I might have said something before they got started. When I found them, they had this set up already. I like my coworker. We get along and she’s a good teacher. She’s strict, but she cares about the kids.

We complain that kids don’t engage in imaginative play, but we seem to squash it without meaning to. We often have to interrupt play that could become more complex because of keeping to a daily schedule. We wish there were more healthy positive social interactions between the kids, but we have a tendency to interrupt those as well. As rules and regulations for childcare increase, that gets past down to the children. We no longer have the freedom and neither do they. Sometimes we have to curb their art because we’re afraid we will run out of paper. the paint is almost gone so we can’t do that project we had planned. Assessments are around the corner so we have to find out if the child can pick out any letters or make an AB pattern. So much of today’s childcare industry is filled with budgets, rules and regulations. Whatever happened to what we were in this field for, the kids? Sitting down and actually playing and talking with the kids. I am glad I grew up when I did because I have fond memories of playing outside, being creative and laughing with my friends. I often wonder, what will our children say they remember from their childhoods?



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      Activities, Parenting
            
        Ducks in a Row Sensory Tub
        
          April 24, 2018

I put this one together several weeks ago. It's very simple, but it was a big hit because of the water. You can put anything in water and kids will enjoy it.

What’s in the tub?

Small rubber duckies,

Mini rubber duckies,

Small cups and scoops,

Water and that’s it.

We scooped, poured, compared the sizes and colors of the ducks, squeezed them to get all the water out and of course there was some splashing to. I put towels down on either the kitchen or bathroom floor so I don’t have a huge mess to clean up.

There are many more sensory bin ideas I’ll be posting in the upcoming months. Happy playing.

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Activities, Parenting, Preschool, Sensory Play, Toddlers

Peeps and Pompoms Sensory Tub

April 18, 2018

I know Easter has passed, but why not keep playing with eggs and peeps? Rosebud loves all the textures in this sensory tub.

What’s in the tub?

Plush peeps,

Plastic Easter eggs,

Regular and sparkly pompoms,

Small cups,

Mini shovel and spoons.

Rosebud made up her own activity. She found a basket and loves to transfer the pompoms from the tub to the basket. She does this over and over again. It’s good fine motor practice. It’s a really simple activity, but she loves it.

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