Happy Tuesday friends! Just sharing a few quick, cheap & easy DIY sensorial activities for you and your toddler. These are all activities that Ella has been enjoying a lot lately and we wanted to share with our friends! :)
Color Swatches-
You can find really high quality wooden color swatches online, but they come with a high price as well. I wanted to try and create my own color swatches and color matching activity for Ella, and I was able to do so for less than $2. I used some cardboard, hot glue and foam colored sheets you can find at The Dollar Tree.
Textured cards-
I saw this idea somewhere online and unfortunately now I can't seem to find a direct link. This was definitely not an original idea, but I loved it. These are various textured items that I hot glued to some wooden flat circle cut-outs that we had sitting at home. In fact, all of these materials were items we already had at home. Ella has learned to describe what 'rough' feels like and 'bumpy.' We're working on 'soft' and 'smooth' but she just loves all the different textured feelings on her hands.
Smelling jars-
This is such an easy activity to do at home, and your toddler will love it. The Dollar Tree has several salt/pepper shaker options that work really well for this activity. Inside each jar, I placed items with various aromas- lemon, vanilla, garlic and cotton soaked with vinegar. You can even make it more challenging (when your child is old enough) and cover the jars as they try to guess what they are smelling.
Sound Shakers-
This is a great auditory processing activity, and your toddler will have fun helping you make them too. We got these great plastic jars at The Dollar Tree, and added various things to the jars. Rice, beads, plastic hearts, and beans. I hot glued the lids shut so they wouldn't get opened and make a mess everywhere. Each object makes its own noise when being shaken, and Ella enjoyed hearing the various sounds. She was even able to identify which one was the 'loudest' noise. I was impressed!
Playdough Tray-
Pretty self-explanatory! Ella has been obsessed with play dough lately. After I took this pic I added a few cookie cutters which has been a huge hit!
Rice or Couscous Sensory Bins-
Another self-explanatory! We love a good sensory bin around here, although sometimes I don't always love the mess it creates. I prefer using couscous over rice because I feel like it's easier for me to find and clean up afterward. As you can see, we've been doing a Valentine's Day theme for our activities around here.
Water Play-
Ella loves playing at the sink, but tends to waste water that way. I use this cheap plastic tub and fill it with water, sponges and other pouring toys for her to play with. She'll stand at the sink and play for 10-15 minutes like this. The benefit to her doing it right at the sink is that if she spills, it usually ends up in an easy-to-clean spot. We love using the colored tablets to change the color of the water and the crayola bathtub finger paint too.
Cooking Together-
Preparing meals and cooking together is a great practical life activity, but it also allows your child to explore their sense of taste. Ella likes taking little bites of ingredients we are using as we chop and prepare them. On this day, she was helping me prepare curry chicken salad. She was stealing bites of the chicken and celery along the way, and really enjoyed measuring out/smelling the curry powder!
If you aren't ready to let your child let loose in the kitchen, start with simple pouring activities and 'practice' before you give them actual food items.
If I am preparing a meal that requires a lot of concentration or when I would prefer Ella is hands-off, I give her something else to do, like pour water. Somehow, even with both of my trays, she spilled the water EVERYWHERE... Silly girl.
If any of these ideas are new to you, I hope you try and enjoy them with your toddler as much as we are. Enjoy the rest of your week. We'll be back on Friday for our favorites post.
-Ashley & Ella
xoxo
These are all EXCELLENT ideas! Ro helps a lot with meal times & clean up, hopefully we'll incorporate a few more of these. Thanks for sharing :)
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