Find Your Name Black Bean Sensory Bin

I am very excited to be working with a little boy in my daughter's kindergarten class who needs some extra attention.  The teacher told me that he has had some trouble recognizing his name so she asked me to work on that with him.  I've come up with some ideas that would be fun all while learning. Last week I used cars to help learn his name with our Car Name Game.  This week I'm sharing a new fun way to learn/recognize a child's name.

I had a black bean bin already set up that I had used with my daughter with different projects and thought I could use this for some name recognition fun.  I added some bright colored balloon stickers with letters on them that looked great against the black beans.  I put all the letters of the boys name along with some other letters not in his name and also some blank ones.

I was thrilled to see him dig right in and really enjoy the sensory part of this activity.  I asked him to find the balloon stickers and to put all the letters of his name in a pile separate from the letters not in his name.  As for the blank balloon stickers he put those in another pile.

We use a laminated sheet with his name on it when we do our name activities so that he has that as a reference when learning to recognize his name.

Once all the stickers were sorted I asked him to stick the stickers on a piece of paper spelling out his name, he did great!  I then asked him to write the letters of his name on the blank balloon stickers and stick those onto paper too.

He was so proud of himself as was I!  The black beans and bright colored balloon stickers was a real hit in helping this little boy learn the letters in his name!

More to come on name activities....stay tuned!

Squish Bag CVC Words

We have tried lots of ways to learn CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words.  I believe the more fun the activity is the more the child learns and this activity truly engages your child and their sense of touch.

A squish bag takes 5 minutes  or less to put together and makes zero mess!  This is a good choice of sensory play if your child doesn't like to get messy.

Here's what you'll need to make a bag of your own:

Large ziploc bag
Hair gel (any dollar store brand)
Food coloring
Water
Painters/masking tape
Paper
Pen

Here's how to set it up:

• Write the CVC words or any words, numbers or even shapes that your child might be learning onto a piece of paper.  
• Fill the ziploc bag with hair gel, add water and a few drops of food coloring.  
• Squish the bag to mix the gel, water and food coloring together.  I really didn't measure how much gel and water. Start small with a few good squirts of gel and a little bit of water. This should give you a good idea of how much more you may or may not need.  
• Use the tape and tape the bag over the sheet of paper with the words on it.

Once this is done your child is ready to squish away!  My daughter loved moving the gel around to find the different 'hidden' words.  Once she found a word I had her write it on another sheet of paper and sound it out.  

This was a fun sensory activity where my daughter was also able to work on CVC words, writing  skills and sounding out words.  

A simple to setup activity which made learning CVC words lots more fun!  

Here are a couple of other squish bags we had fun with:

"Under the Sea" bag filled with sea creatures and gems

Letters bag (used no food coloring)

Making words!

Search and Build Springtime Sensory Bin

 Spring is FINALLY in the air!  To help get us in the spirit I made up a Spring Sensory Bin using some decorative grass, and various other things to help build some indoor spring!

Here's everything we used:

Decorative grass (not shown below)
Pipe cleaners
Foam
Googly eyes
Pom poms
Ribbon
Black beans (not shown below)
Empty soap container (not shown below)

My daughter loves a hunt so I thought how about a mini hunt in a bin?!  I added flower 'parts' to the bin by using green pipe cleaners to act as the flower stem and cut out foam in the shape of flowers.  I also added a bunny also cut from foam and things like googly eyes and pom poms so that my daughter could 'put together' her bunny.

I added a few pieces and then would add some grass and continued layering.

Beginning her 'hunt!'

Finding pieces!

Building the flower...

Building the bunny....

After our flowers were all put together we used an old soap container for our vase and added our flowers and bunny to it. I also had some black beans from our Halloween Garden and used the beans as 'soil' for our flowers. This part is completely optional and if interested in doing this you do not have to put in a 'vase' at all but just glue your flowers and bunny to construction paper. 

Since our soap container had a bit of glue on the front from the label we added our bunny to the front of the vase and it stuck perfectly!

So now we have a bit of spring indoors!

My daughter LOVED the decorative grass and I was feeling brave this day and let her have some fun throwing the grass around.  Believe it or not it was a super easy clean up!  She even helped, happily!  I would not recommend letting your child do this with the grass if you have pets as I'm sure ingesting this would be bad for them. 

Sorry for the blurry shots, so much moving and throwing!

Happy Spring!

Raspberry Scented Valentine Playdough

Once I learned how to make homemade playdoh I never bought the store bought stuff again!  One of my favorites was our Ice-cream and Birthay Cake Playdoh which uses only 2 ingredients powdered sugar and frosting!  It was so easy to make and so fun to play with!

For another 2 ingredient option you can also try Cloud dough which was definitely a winner with my daughter.  She asked to play with it several times after her first introduction.

This time around I wanted to try adding some scent to our playdoh.  Since I was making this batch with Valentines in mind I thought a raspberry would be nice.

Here's the recipe:

1 C Flour
2 TBS Cream of Tartar
1/4 C Salt
1 C Water
1TBS Vegetable Oil
Raspberry extract
Red food coloring
Glitter (optional)


Add all the ingredients together in a large pot over medium heat and keep stirring for about 5 minutes.  You'll know when it's done when the playdough gets harder to stir. This is also where I added in the raspberry extract.  I didn't measure just kept squirting till it felt right.  It will be hot so carefully remove from the pot and let cool off on tinfoil or parchment paper.  Once the playdough is cool enough begin kneading it and adding in glitter (optional).

I put out the playdough for my kids along with some 'accessories' like heart beads, gems, pipecleaners, buttons and let them go wild!

Here are some of their creations:

My son's creations:

My daughter's creations:

It looked like so much fun I made one of my own:

Here are some benefits of playing with playdough:

• works on fine motor skills
• imaginative play
• sensory experience

Christmas I Spy Bottle

I Spy Bottles are fun and educational.  As the child explores the bottle they use their language skills to tell you what they find like "a green button" or a "red bow."  They also work on their observation skills as they use their senses to touch, see and hear.  For children who can write this activity also helps fine motor and writing skills as they can write down the objects they find in the bottle.

We have made other I Spy Bottles and my kids have enjoyed exploring them all.  I thought it would be fun to make up a Christmas theme I Spy Bottle.  This past yard sale season I picked up a ziploc bag filled and I mean filled with Christmas trinkets like little tiny mittens, stars, green and red buttons, tiny stockings and Christmas trees.  All things that would fit perfectly into an I Spy Bottle!

I started off by dying some rice red and green.  I wasn't sure of the best way to dye rice but Happy Hooligans has a super easy, mess free way to do it.  To learn how check out their post How To Color Rice.

While the rice was drying I grabbed my yard sale bag of Christmas trinkets and started writing down the things I would put into the bottle.  I used a small notepad that I keep right next to where the I Spy Bottle is.  This way, my kids can look at the book and check things off as they find them.  Since my daughter can't read yet I call off things from the book for her to find while other times she just quietly explores and discovers on her own. Another option is taking a picture of the trinkets before adding them, printing it and attaching it with ribbon to the bottle.  This way would work best for non-readers.

Once the rice was dry I began filling the bottle using a piece of paper rolled into a cone like shape.  Our funnel did not work well for this part.  I poured in some rice and then added some trinkets and did this all the way up.  When you get to the top leave a few inches so that you have enough room for the rice to move around.  Lastly, I hot glue gun the cap to the bottle so nothing accidentally spills out!

This was a really fun addition to our other I Spy Bottles and it added to our Christmas fun!

Here are some of our other I Spy Bottles:

My 9 year old son made this one on his own using a combination of rice and dinosaur sprinkles! He chose to attach his label of what was included to the side of the bottle.

After my 4 year old saw her brothers I Spy Bottle she wanted to make one of her own.  I didn't have any other larger bottles so I took an old spice container and let her fill that.

We've used rice for all of our I Spy Bottles except this one where I used colored sprinkles.

I Spy Bottles can be any size and most would fit perfectly into your purse or backpack. You could take them with you on car rides or play with while waiting at a doctors office or restaurant!

Shaving Cream Christmas Tree

We've done other shaving cream crafts in the past and my daughter was always apprehensive about touching it, that is up until now!  I'm glad I tried shaving cream again because my daughter really had fun with it this time. She even told me that she didn't need anything else to stir the shaving cream with except for her hands.....well, ok then!

We started off with a baking sheet and added some shaving cream to it.  We then added a few drops of green food coloring and that's when the mixing begins.  Like I said my daughter dug right in!  I didn't even get a chance to tell her not to mix the food coloring all the way through the shaving cream since I was hoping for more of marbled or swirled look. At this point I was just glad that she took to the sensory experience!

Once the food coloring is mixed around we took a piece of white paper and placed it flat down onto the shaving cream then lifted it off.

 I also used a scraper to take off the excess shaving cream.

 Once it was dry I cut our tree into a triangle shape and gave my daughter some pom pom's and a star for decorating.

The huge black pom pom's were not my idea of Christmas-y  but this is her craft after all!

This is an easy and fun craft that exposes your child to a sensory experience and if you use glue to stick on the pom pom's you'll work on fine motor skills too!

Materials needed:
Baking sheet
Shaving cream
Green food coloring
Pom pom's
Posicle stick or straw for stirring (or just use your hands if you don't mind green hands for a few days!!)

Halloween Sensory Bin

This is a super engaging and fun activity to set up in anticipation of Halloween! At the time I made this bin my son was 9 years old and my daughter was 4.  Because of the gap in age the activities I share may not always be suitable for both of them.  However,  this is one they both really, really enjoyed.  Actually, much to my surprise my almost 9 year old stayed with this sensory bin longer than my 4 year old!  It was interesting too seeing which part of the sensory bin drew them in.  My daughter was automatically drawn to the gems and after a few minutes of the bin asked for the bottle we use when we play with water. She began filling up the bottle with the gems that she found hidden in the bin.  My son on the other hand also went to the gems but the bigger ones and began counting them out and telling me how much 'money' he had.  I love watching and listening to their play to see where an activity, especially with sensory bins, will take them.

My son filled the little pumpkins and also counted and sorted the jewels the coins and the plastic skull rings. 

My daughter played with the activity for a fair amount of time.  However, the gems caught her attention which must have made her think of her marbles because she was off on her own using her tongs and adding marbles to our sensory bottle.  

The best part for me though was watching both of my kids enjoy an activity together.

Here's what I included with this bin:

• Split Green Peas
• Plastic Pumpkins
• Pom pom's
• Skull rings
• Bat rings
• Plastic bugs
• Googly eyes
• Spider stickers
• Gems
• Coins
• (the gems and coins were after thoughts because I remembered how much my kids have liked them in other sensory bins)

Close up of our bins contents

These were extra's that were available if the kids wanted to add more in.