Category

Sensory Activities

Play-Doh & Rice Sensory Play

Play-Doh Sensory Craft

 

This has been a tough few days. Our daughter sprained her wrist & hasn’t been able to do much.  We have kept her calm & entertained with books, Highlights magazines & hours of marathon watching Stella & Sam & Play-Doh videos. We had far too much screen time this weekend & I needed to entertain her another way.

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We made a simple sensory craft using Play-Doh & colored rice. You could just as easy use sprinkles, small gems or buttons too.

I cut a cone shape out of construction paper & glued it to a white piece of paper.

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I drew hash lines on the cone with a marker. I rolled out Play-Doh and formed ice cream scoops.

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We used dyed rice to press into our ice cream scoops as sprinkles.

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When we finished with this, Mai wanted to keep playing with the Play-Doh & rice. We made several other crafts using cookie cutters & free form creations.

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Mai made a sweet little hand print & I made a flower.

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Mai made a bunch more too. This was a great activity that kept her happy & occupied with one hand for hours.

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Play-Doh & Rice Hand Print Activity & Craft

Who Needs Toys – Playtime Made Easy

047You always hear people joke that you don’t need to buy young children expensive toys because all they end up wanting to play with is the box. This is no joke. There is no truer statement. Toddlers are easy; they can find the fun in anything. Their little spongy minds are absorbing and exploring everything. Things as simple as the box, are still new and fascinating territory for them. At 2 years old, my daughter is past the excitement of the box, but still has a taste for the simpler things in life.
We have more toys in this house than we know what to do with. Between the play kitchen, Little People Villages & Twisty Tracks, she should have enough to keep her occupied until she is in her teens, but as kids tend to do, she gets bored of these things very quickly. There are many things that you can do to occupy your child’s day without the use of fancy toys.

Here are some simple and fun things for your child to do.

Water play

It doesn’t get much simpler than this. This is one of my favorite activities to give my daughter while I am cooking or doing dishes. Lay out a towel & fill a large container half way with water and add some measuring cups & spoons. Here my daughter told me she is making coffee.

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Chick Peas, Beans & Rice

Similar to above, I have a container of chickpeas & colored rice set aside just for play. It is amazing how long my daughter will play with them. She will count them out & transfer them from cup to cup.

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Couch Cushion Fun

My daughter has a lot of energy. She loves to jump & is always throwing herself on the ground for some odd reason. Take your couch cushions off the couch & place them on the floor & let your child roll around on the pile of pillows.

Stringing Pasta

Pasta necklaces are an old classic. This requires a little bit of hand – eye coordination. Mai strung up the 3 shown below & told me that it was the mama pasta, daddy pasta & baby pasta.

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Read, read & read some more

We spend about a half hour before bed reading books every night, but books are not just for bedtime. We often read to our daughter while she is eating to keep her firmly planted in her chair during her meal. Many times even if my daughter insists that she does not want a story, if I just start reading she will eventually jump up on my lap.

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Bubble Wrap

We order from Amazon a lot, I mean a lot. Bubble wrap comes with most of these packages. I think that bubble wrap is fun for small children and adults alike. Who doesn’t love popping that stuff?

Blanket forts

Being that mommy is always cold, even in the summer, we have blankets all over the house. Mai loves it when we make forts over the couch. “Mommy, play in the fort toooooooo?” Definitely! Here she is reading with a flashlight under her fort.

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Song & Dance

My daughter loves music. She has been dancing as long as she has been walking. She also loves to sing songs with mommy & daddy. Don’t underestimate the power of music.

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Red Light, Green Light & other games

My daughter loves running around our house in circles. I had to teach her Red light, Green light just to catch my breath in between chases. Pheeew! Also try Simon Says or Hide and Seek.

Get outside

If your toddler is like mine, then he or she loves to run free. Take them outside, weather permitting & let them run & jump and play. Here is Mai walking the track at the Relay for Life in memory of her grandmother & namesake.

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Color & Draw

I have an unlimited supply of poster board in our home. My daughter loves to doodle & color. She also loves when we draw for her too. She & I will lie on the floor and she will ask me to draw pictures of caterpillars & horses. She has a vivid imagination. She creates different scenarios for these pictures. Here Mai asked Mama to draw a mama & dada spider. She said that they were both sick & needed medicine.

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Stacking boxes

I love stacking boxes & have quite a few sets strewn all over the house. My daughter shares my love for them. She likes piling them up & placing them inside of one another.

Styrofoam & Yarn

Seriously! Yarn sticks to styrofoam. If you are like me & have styrofoam cones laying around this is a great busy activity.

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What easy & simple activities do you have for you & your toddler. I would love to hear.

Dinosaur & Fossil Finding Sensory Box

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My daughter likes dinosaurs. She really likes them. I think this is largely because of the book ‘How do dinosaurs say goodnight?’. I am not sure, but regardless, she loves those crazy creatures. A few weeks back I took her to a dinosaur exhibit.

 

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She of course loved it. There was a wide range of dinosaur related displays, rides & activities. One of the kid’s activities there was a sandbox with fossilized rock at the bottom. It had paint brushes to brush off the sand to uncover the fossils. Mai really enjoyed this. I thought this would be an easy enough activity to make a home. It took a few weeks, but today we finally tackled this sensory box & the results were great.

 

What you will need:

 

A large Rubbermaid container

Hardening modeling Clay – I made my own off of this recipe from Wiki- http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Modeling-Clay-at-Home

Play Sand

Paint Brushes

Corn Starch

Dinosaur figurines

An old sheet or a drop cloth

 

Instructions:

Get your molding clay ready. Knead & roll out to the desired shapes.

 

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Using your dinosaurs make imprints into the clay with their feet & their bodies.

 

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Let your clay harden according to it’s recipe directions or package directions.

 

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Once your imprinted clay is hardened & cooled, place at the bottom of your Rubbermaid container.

 

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Pour play sand on top of your clay imprints. I mixed the sand with cornstarch to lighten the texture of the sand.

 

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Add your dinosaurs and paint brushes. Lay down an old sheet or drop cloth to collect any sand that may escape.

 

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Dinosaurs!

 

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Brush the sand & reveal your fossils.

 

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My adorable daughter is showing me the mama dinosaur holding her baby dinosaur. So cute!

 

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This is fun!

 

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Mai loved this activity. We played with it after supper & up until bath time. She was so deep into her new role as archaeologist that mommy was able to bake, do the dishes & pick up all of her toys. It was a good night. Mai even helped mommy sweep up after.

 

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Related topics:

http://expatfamilyq8.com/2014/02/26/cocoa-cloud-dough/

http://expatfamilyq8.com/2014/02/22/coloured-corn-sensory-box/

http://teachingtwos.com/2014/02/13/february-sensory-box/

http://lifelessonplans.org/farm-sensory-bin/

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Thank you as always for stopping by. Please follow us on Facebook as well.

Christmas Sensory Box

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Up until about two months ago I never heard of a sensory box. I started seeing them popping up all over Pinterest. I remember thinking, “I don’t see how this would interest my daughter” , but still I was intrigued by the idea. It turns out I could not have been more wrong. It makes me a little angry that I didn’t know about these earlier, because they truly are a mommy sanity saver.

 

Since it tis the season & all, I thought a Christmas sensory box would be just the thing to get our daughter excited for the holidays.

The last box we made was filled with multi-colored rice, scoops & tiny little animals & creepy crawly critters. Mai loved it! It would keep her occupied for hours on end, but I was picking rice out of the strangest places weeks later.

 

I wanted one a little less messy this time around. The idea I had involved using  cotton blankets of snow & mixing assorted Christmas themed items inside the folds of cotton.

I love the Dollar Store. The dollar store is perfect for finding affordable fillers for sensory play. Lucky for me, I work right next door to one & can shop on my lunch breaks for wonderful treasures. Here are a few of the items that I was lucky enough to find.

 

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I had my ingredients, lets construct our box.

 

I use a Rubber Maid storage bin for ours. I pulled and stretched at the blankets of snow to make it loose & fluffy & placed it in the bin. I cut the garland into several pieces & lined the outside. I had hundreds of plastic mini ornaments. I placed them evenly throughout the snow, hiding them with the folds. I did the same with the pine cones, rubber leaves & berries. The cloth presents were just laid across the top.

 

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Mai was so excited as mommy was putting this together. She kept yelling “box, box!”

“Ok, baby girl.” It is ready. Dig in!

 

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The verdict: The Christmas sensory box was a hit. She played with it so quietly for about an hour before bed. Awwww.. Life is good.

Up next: Holiday Traditions

 

Related topics:

http://artsycraftymom.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/sensory-box/

http://lilfootprints.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/creepy-crawly-slimey-worms-and-flies/

http://binyaminamontessori.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/color-week-curiosity-box/

http://thepinterestedparent.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/treasure-hunt-bottles/

 

 

Treasure Hunt Bottles

Sensory bottles for kids made out of colored rice & Dollar store toys. A great sensory activity for toddlers

A few weeks ago, we had to bring our daughter to the emergency room. She had what was called nursemaids elbow, a common toddler injury, which is basically a dislocated elbow. With a quick movement the doctor snapped Mai’s elbow back in place & within seconds, she was back to her happy, smiley, mischievous self. I was relieved. It is a nerve wracking couple of hours.

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While we were there, a very nice nurse brought us a cylinder like toy, filled with sand and different assorted shapes and objects. She gave this to Mai to play with as we waited for her x-rays. The toy worked in distracting our little miss from her injuries. I thought this was a wonderful idea, but in all the stress and anxiety of the situation, it was quickly forgotten, until yesterday when I saw a pin for a treasure hunt game.

This reminded me of the cylinder and all of its’ random objects. I thought this should be easy enough to recreate and would have to be more fun to play with, without a big ouchie.

What you will need…

An old soda bottle 20 oz or 32 will do

rice or sand

food coloring

assorted plastic toys small enough to fit into a bottle top

I originally made this with a 2 liter bottle, but found that it was too heavy for Mai to play with, so we transferred it to a 20 oz bottle. This worked much better for her little hands.

Directions:

Peel the soda label of the bottle. Clean the bottle & let it dry thoroughly

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Pour rice & food coloring into a ziplock bag & shake

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Pour rice onto paper plate to dry

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Insert mini toys into bottle. I went with assorted insects, bugs, butterflies and reptiles. I bought these at the Dollar Store.
Use a funnel & fill the bottle 3/4 of the way with rice.

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Seal top using super glue.

Shake the bottle to mix up the toys

Let your toddler shake & play & point out all of the objects

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With all the left over rice we had, we also made a sensory box.

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The verdict: She loved the bottles. She was shaking it up and pointing to birds and butterflies and laughing. The sensory boxes are always a hit in our house. It was a fun day for Mai. It was a messy day for mommy.

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Drop cloths, mommy..drop cloths. Some one hand me a broom.

 

Cool whip finger painting & more messy play

Cool Whip Finger Paints - edible paints & messy fun for toddlers
As any mother of a toddler knows, toddlers have a short attention span and like to keep busy constantly. They are discovering and learning something new every day, every minute, every second. It is an incredible to thing to watch. It can be uplifting, amazing, funny, heartwarming, frustrating and oh so tiring.
It can be extremely difficult finding activities that will engage & hold my daughter’s interest. She, like her father is a runner. She does not like to stay still even for short periods of time, which is the reason I think I have such a hard time getting her to eat her meals.

One thing my daughter does like is finger painting. Like most children her age she also likes to put everything in her mouth. I found this recipe for edible finger paints last year on Pinterest.

Edible Finger Paint 
2 Tbs. corn starch
4 Tbs. water
food coloring as desired
 
Combine and mix well.

I have made these several times. Here is Mai hard at work.

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The verdict…
This is a great recipe but I found that with this and with other finger paint recipes that they were too soupy.
She would pour out her paint containers within minutes, and that would be end of that.

I saw another idea for playing in shaving cream and I thought this was a great idea but I didn’t want her eating it.

The image of the shaving cream brought to mind Cool Whip. Lucky for me I always have a tub of Cool Whip handy.
I portioned out the Cool Whip into 3 containers and added food coloring and stirred until I achieved the desired color.
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Mai was curious about it right of the bat. I set up her painting area by putting down a drop cloth under her chair and set a piece of poster board down for her at the kitchen table.
Let the paint fly, Mai!

She, of course, had to start off with a taste test.

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It passed with flying colors, now she is ready to paint.

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I gave her a cork and a paintbrush to work with. I was impressed with my little Picasso. She used the brush to paint the cork and then used the cork to stamp the paper.

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Mai’s finished Mess-terpiece.

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The verdict…
The Cool Whip paints worked wonderfully. The denser texture made for a better contained mess & it was much easier to mix than regular finger paints. It tastes better too.

WATER PLAY
Mai loves playing with liquid. One of my daughters favorite things to do is to take her sippy cup and pour her juice, milk, etc into anything she thinks will hold it. I have caught her taking random toys and putting them in her play pots and making soup out of them.

Here is another simple activity. Leave the splash mat out.

I used a small Rubbermaid container and filled it halfway with food colored water. We added some play cups and bath toys. She held on the the paint brush, too. She became really attached to it.

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I also gave her a pump bottle filled with the same colored liquid. She loved this.

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The verdict…
This one was a winner. I was able to cook a whole dinner while she enjoyed her water play. Thank you, baby.

Thank you as always for stopping by. Please follow us on Facebook as well.

Cool Whip Finger Paints - edible paints & messy fun for toddlers