Valentines Sensory Play

Oh, we had fun today!  This was so up Freya's street it was unbelievable - and Riley really liked it too.  The other day I dyed some rice with a bit of pink food colouring (approx 500g of rice and 1/2tsp of food colouring if anyone's interested in the 'recipe'!!!) and left it to dry.  Then today, I put it in the tub with half a pack of cheap table confetti.  Pink and sparkly - very Valentines-ish.  And very Freya!  So here they are...

Aw - so pretty!

Crazy Soap Sensory Play

I think I've said before - I love this stuff!  Just like shaving foam, but without the mess. 

That being said, there was a bit of mess - Riley decided he liked splatting it to make tiny, tiny bits fly everywhere!  Aaaaargh!

Yet another sensory play

I am so into sensory play at the moment.  Its so easy - you tip the stuff into a bowl/tray, let them play with it, then tip it back in the packet and put it away.  Minimal set up and clean up!!!  Until today.  I've had an idea lurking for ages.  I was intending to do it before Christmas as a festive activity, but all the horrible illness got in the way (they both had the nasty nasty virus - did I tell you that?  And were both out of circulation for well over a week at slightly staggered times.  I nearly went crazy.)  The idea is very simple - uncooked, rolled porridge oats and a little bit of glitter.  As is usual now, Riley refused to even look at it.  Freya thought it was wonderful though and had a full on tantrum when I took it away (she was trying to redecorate the kitchen with it in my defence!)

A word of warning though - this is one to do outside.  The oats were really dusty and didn't want to shake off our mat easily, and well, glitter is glitter and goes everywhere at the best of times!  So my plan of virtually no clean up was thwarted today, extra sweeping and wiping - yuck!

More Sensory Play

Today Riley joined in too, for the first time in weeks.  Nothing amazing, our faithful bag of dried beans, this time with an Ikea heart shaped ice cube tray.  Freya had lots of fun trying to spoon the beans into the little holes!

I've got a great idea for a brand new sensory play activity - I'll reveal all soon!

Falling back on an old standby

I haven't blogged for a few days as Riley is sick.  He's spent several days crying, drifting in and out of sleep on the sofa and doing very little else poor kid.  But by today Freya was bored, big time.  And I didn't have much time to do anything fancy with her as I was so busy looking after Riley.  So I fell back on an old standby - sensory play with our bag of Tesco's broth mix (a combination of pearl barley, red lentils, split peas and a few other bits). 

She spent a happy 15 minutes mixing and pouring them while Riley slept.  And the best part - minimal clean up.  Just pour them back into the packet!!!

Dot Markers

I've been reading a lot on the web recently about do-a-dot markers, so I thought I'd try them with Riley, particularly after his dotty picture the other day.  I couldn't find the ones I'd seen online so I just bought bingo dabbers.  Riley thinks they're great.  He did a lovely dotty picture again (with more counting - the kid's obsessed with numbers!).

It started out with nice, neat dots, but then he discovered that as they were very full of ink, if he 'dotted' with more force it created a lovely splat shape.  Here it is:

I have no idea if its supposed to be something!  Afterwards we did some sensory play with Crazy Soap.  They both loved it (to the point I had to stop them redecorating the house with it!)  For those of you that don't know, Crazy Soap is a less messy, more interesting version of shaving foam!  Its the strangest stuff - it holds it's foaminess and sticks to itself, so you can model it into vague shapes, and its kind of floaty and light, not gloopy.  Best of all, it doesn't stick to you!  We had so much fun with it I forgot to take many photos, and the ones I did take aren't very good.  Here's the best of a bad bunch!

Christmas Sensory Play

Uh-oh.  Our 12 Days of Christmas Arts and Crafts isn't going as planned - Riley is in a funk and doesn't want to do any of it (he can get a bit like this towards the end of term).  Today I decided to change tack.  If art is out, we'll do some sensory play.  It didn't work.  He took one look at it and walked off without a word.  Never mind - Freya and I had a lovely time!

I got a couple of 50p packs of angel hair from Tesco (I absolutely hate it on Christmas trees, but its lovely to play with!) and added a few mini paper chains seeing as she was so fascinated with them yesterday, and that was it!

Its so twinkly and fluttery!  As you can see, she was impressed.

Sensory Play

Today we did some sensory play with beans.  I love our beans - they're so smooth and shiny.  Not to mention they were £1 for the whole lot from Asda!  I gave them a pan, a spoon and a ladle to mess about with alongside the beans.  A good time was had by all!