Jelly is great for sensory play, small world and science experiments as it’s tactile, edible, smells great and also very versatile. Here are some of our favourite jelly activity ideas, from c…
I adapted this activity from an idea I saw on Seussville. The Seussville activity has kids make their own Cat in the Hat hats out of paper bags, and use them as a container for a hat toss. I deci…
New Years Sensory Bins are a fun way to ring in the new year with your toddler. Here are two amazing ideas with two very different fillers.
[Motherhood with a side of craft and fun]
I've seen many great Discovery / I Spy Bottles on the Internet & have had them on my to-do list for ages! With Minnie's current interest in seasons, the bottles seemed a great opportunity for more seasonal discovery, so we collected four empty water bottles, & a selection of items from around the house & garden & got creating... We started with Winter (Minnie's choice) & for this we used; arborio risotto rice (the pearly risotto rice has a glossy, smooth texture making it perfect to represent snow), silver glitter/stars, mini red pompoms/bells (to represent berries), mini silver & white pompoms (to represent snowballs), a couple of stars, & a few foam shapes (holly leaves, small Christmas tree, snowflakes, & a tiny gingerbread man). Minnie started by mixing the silver stars with the rice in a baking dish, then scooped a little of the mixture into the bottle. Creating these bottles offered a multitude of sensory experiences. Minnie especially enjoyed sifting, pouring, patting & rolling the rice around with her hands. She continued to fill the bottle with her hands, adding her chosen 'winter' items as she went. Then Minnie discovered a funnel was so much easier to use & continued to fill using a spoon. (Great for observing a child's hand-eye co-ordination & motor skills.) When the contents had reached the neck of the bottle we added the lid & secured with strong glue. Alternatively you could seal with tape. Then we moved on to create our Autumn bottle. For this we used: tricolor pasta shapes, a collection of finds from our nature walks (acorns, conkers, mini pine cones, sticks, leaves, beechnuts, walnuts) & a few silk petals in autumnal colours. To create smaller pasta shapes we poured the pasta onto an old tray, placed an old towel over the top & crushed the pasta with a rolling pin. Minnie had great fun banging the rolling pin over the towel & then rolling it over the bumps. A great way to observe gross motor skills & great to see her energy as she excitedly rolled (& thumped) the rolling pin over the pasta. When the pasta had been pounded (!) Minnie added it to the bottle as before, along with her mini autumnal finds. We discovered that adding a little filler (pasta) first, then adding an item or two, followed by more filler & then repeating gave the best results. Apologies there are no pics of the pasta being crushed, I was a preoccupied with my pasta crushing monster. ;-) The tricolor pasta created some great autumnal colour in the bottle. Lentils would make a good alternative, we just used the pasta as it was in our cupboard at the time, & I knew Minnie would love hammering the pasta & creating lots of noise! The bottle was sealed as before, then ready to investigate. Our Summer bottle was our next creation, & for this we used three small jars of dried parsley, dried statice flowers, small silk flowers in a mix of bright colours, dried peas & beans, mini plastic butterflies & bees, & small ladybirds. The dried parsley represented grass, & was a nice addition to the summer bottle as it's one of the herbs Minnie has been growing in her garden area. We sealed as before, & our summer bottle was complete. Finally our Spring bottle. For this was used; flower seeds (collected from our garden a few weeks ago), pumpkin seeds, dry bird food (small seeds), dried statice flowers, green silk leaves, sprigs of silk blossom, a few small leaves cut from green foam, a plastic butterfly & spider. As Spring is the season for planting seeds it seemed appropriate to add them to this Spring discovery bottle. Hopefully the few small flowers & tiny green leaves will represent the new life that Spring brings. It's nice to think that Minnie collected these seeds from plants she sowed last Spring. I attached four labels identifying the four seasons, & our Discovery Bottles were ready! These can be explored separately, or alongside each other & used to compare the seasons. They encourage observation skills, discovery, predictability, & offer an opportunity to investigate nature, colour, shape, & pattern. They can prompt a wealth of language, conversation & stories, & can be explored individually or with a group. And the thing that I love most about these frugal, fun bottles is that children of all ages can independently explore them. Fantastic! Shared with Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime!, Fun Sparks, All Year Round Blog Carnival: Spring
You just need a few supplies to magically transport your child into the colorful imaginary world of Dr. Seuss with this Dr. Seuss Sensory Play Idea.
My child loves sensory books, so I decided to make a sensory page for the quiet book. This page was pretty easy to make.
Learn how you can make a wizard hat out of paper with supplies you already have at home with this fun craft. Your kids will love wearing their wizard hat and perform magic!
Frozen flowers in ice are perfect for a summer themed sensory play idea. Easy to prepare ice play that looks amazing!
Comment "sun hat" for her hat link 👒 ❤️ 10 MORE TASTE SAFE SENSORY IDEAS: 🌈Cooked pasta with food colours and tongs 🌈Crushed cereal and some diggers 🌈Yogurt & food colour with paint brushes (in...
Fun Cat in the Hat Sensory Tray. Use for fine motor skill practice, inspire maths and literacy work or just for fun.
Matching and fine-motor fun with a Dr. Seuss inspired Cat in the Hat sensory bin for preschoolers at home or in the classroom.
Set up this fun Dr. Seuss Sensory Bin filled with colored rice and Dr Seuss rhymes! Find The Cat In The Hat rhyming words!
Build up visual and fine motor skills with this adorable Cat in the Hat Sensory Bottle with your child or class. A fun way to celebrate the author Dr. Seuss! The Cat in the Hatby
Create a squishy bag full of friendly creatures for your toddlers to play with. Hair gel turns into a bright blue ocean that holds bright and cheery craft foam creatures.
Build up visual and fine motor skills with this adorable Cat in the Hat Sensory Bottle with your child or class. A fun way to celebrate the author Dr. Seuss! The Cat in the Hatby
Sensory bins are always a hit during preschool speech therapy and even with school aged students. They can be used to target articulation, phonology, following directions, describing, spatial concepts and more. Themed Sensory Bins can be daunting to think about creating - but they don’t have to be complicated or expensive.I have laid out exactly how to create 32 Themed Mini Sensory Bins for less than 30 dollars - less than one dollar for each bin (you can see the list of themes I made if you scr
Today, we featured a special Halloween edition of Baby & Me. All the babies dressed in costume; it was like a Halloween baby parade! It was so cute that it made me wish that we could all wear costumes everyday! Mystery Box: Inside our yellow box, we found a little black cat! What does a cat say? MEOW! Books We Read: Where Is Baby’s Pumpkin- Katz Jack & Jill- Yoon Holiday Rhyme: I found this special pumpkin song and we tried it as a bounce/lift rhyme with the babies. You could use it with toddlers and preschoolers with popsicle stick puppets too. The Pumpkins Are Here (sung to: "The Farmer in the Dell"). The pumpkins are here, the pumpkins are there. The pumpkins, the pumpkins are everywhere. The pumpkins are up; the pumpkins are down. The pumpkins, the pumpkins are all around. The pumpkins are in; the pumpkins are out. The pumpkins, the pumpkins are all about. The pumpkins are low; the pumpkins are high. The pumpkins, the pumpkins all say, "Good-bye". From Perpetual Preschool Flannel Story: Brown Bat, Brown Bat, What Do You See? "I see a red leaf looking at me" I found this idea at Mel’s Desk & it was awesome! We sang to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle” as I placed different colored Halloween & autumn themed felt pieces on the flannel board: brown bat, red leaf, gray owl, yellow moon, white ghost, black cat, & orange pumpkin. Thanks Mel for this amazing idea! Puppet: Ghosties I made these two ghost finger puppets from felt and we did this rhyme: Two Little Ghosties 2 little ghosties looking at you One named Woo, one named Boo! Fly away Woo, fly away Boo! Fly back Woo, fly back Boo! From Loons and Quines I really enjoyed today’s class, it was a smaller group than usual because of the holiday and the books & rhymes for this theme really worked. A wonderful program!
Our sensory tub this week contained mittens and clothespins. The children were able to squeeze the clothespins and hang the mitten on the thick wooden rod. I was worried that it might be too thick for them to manage. Sometimes they needed a bit of guidance. But with practice, they were successful. Or they preferred to figure out how the clothespin worked and took them apart to see the spring. Yesterday we had a lot of snow so I filled a big tub and added it to our play. Now they used the mittens in another way, a way that was familiar. When finished playing in the snow, the mittens could be hung to dry. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this sensory tub was used a lot more than I had expected.
Create a playful game inspired by this popular Dr. Seuss book! The Cat in the Hat Alphabet Fishbowl Sensory Game teaches letter recognition with the beloved fish.
Build up visual and fine motor skills with this adorable Cat in the Hat Sensory Bottle with your child or class. A fun way to celebrate the author Dr. Seuss! The Cat in the Hatby
We headed out to garden to make Fairy Soup, which was a fabulous fine motor and sensory activity, and a great way to keep cool on a warm, humid morning
Introducing toddlers and young children to the alphabet early on can be so beneficial to their early literacy development. The key is to make it fun and natural rather than a lesson. By exposing children to letters through play, you help them develop a positive feeling towards learning. Last week’s Discover & Explore ABC’s & …
A photo on Friday, because sometimes all you need is the picture. And this is a cute one. This is how a two year old looks when wearing a frozen hat ... We made frozen hats by popping a wet sun hat in the freezer. We used hats that the boys had been wearing after
Rainbow Fish Preschool and Toddler Fishing Activities for Make Believe: Ziploc Aquarium Craft and Hoola Hoop Pond.
Ringer Game DIY Toy for Kids - Here is a fun ringer game sensory bottle that can help children focus, calm down, and learn to self-regulate.
A simple and sweet autumn craft for the kids! Get crative and make some Autumn Leaf Hats with the little ones in your life!
A week worth of Dr. Seuss activities for preschoolers including ideas for The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and more.
Kids love this Cat In The Hat Sensory Box! Read the story and then allow learning to happen through play time in this sensory bin.
Set up this fun Dr. Seuss Sensory Bin filled with colored rice and Dr Seuss rhymes! Find The Cat In The Hat rhyming words!
This Dr Seuss Slime Recipe is the perfect Cat Hat activity for kids of all ages. If you're looking for Cat Hat Activities for Kids check this out.
A fun sensory way to learn your ABC's with gel writing.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. On March 2nd we always celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday! This month we are sharing some fun Dr. Seuss crafts and activities to help us get prepared! For Virtual Book
With Spring & Easter just around the corner, we've been busy creating our Easter bonnet! This was my preschooler's first Easter bonnet. She was desperate to make a daffodil hat with ladybirds on, so we came up with this simple design. To make our Daffodil Easter Bonnet we used: 2 sheets of A4 green card Green pipe cleaners 1 sheet of yellow card Orange tissue paper Scraps of recycled card & foam sheets. For the base of the hat, we cut a sheet of green A4 card in half to create two long strips, & cut thin triangular shapes from the other sheet to create strands of grass. (If you haven't got any coloured card, you could colour/paint the inside of a cereal packet.) To create the flowers, my girl took a look at our mini daffodil plant & observed the shape & size of each flower before creating her own daffodil designs. She cut these out & we attached them to the green pipe cleaners using sticky tape. For the centre of the flowers we scrunched up sections of orange tissue paper. We attached the pipe cleaners to the hat with more tape, making sure the base of the pipe cleaner was covered so it wouldn't irritate when it was worn. To create the hat shape, I wrapped the card around your her head to get an accurate fit, & then secured the edges of the card with tape. We added a few ladybirds & butterflies using the scraps of paper & stickers. These additions turned the Easter hat into an 'eye spy' game which my girl loved. Who'd a thought you could explore literacy with an Easter bonnet! This hat has been paraded around the garden & house on several occasions & I love watching the daffodils swaying around as my girl dashes about! She's looking forward to wearing it out & about next week. A bright hat to welcome the arrival of Spring & celebrate Easter.
Set up a Madeline Sensory Tray Writing activity with these 10 free printable line prompts. Prompts even include a Madeline hat to show start spot.
Are you looking for winter theme activity ideas for your kids? This fun snowman fine motor activity fits the bill. The snowman is easy to craft from a plastic bottle. Kids enjoy filling the snowman
Ringer Game DIY Toy for Kids - Here is a fun ringer game sensory bottle that can help children focus, calm down, and learn to self-regulate.
