This moon sand recipe is so easy to make! With only two ingredients, you'll be playing with this soft and sensory sand within minutes. Moon Sand This moon sand recipe is so much fun. The texture is soft and crumbly, but it also molds really well into different shapes. The kids thought it was the best thing ever! I've tested different kinetic sand recipes before (like this kinetic sand, this moldable play sand and this foam sand), but this one was BY FAR the best. And with only 2 ingredients it's also super easy to make. We loved how the
Spring is a wonderful time of year to enjoy, explore and learn about the natural world, from new growth, buds and blossom of plants to animals nesting and raising young. Here are 30 fun and easy sp…
Make this super soft, no cook, cloud dough recipe! Only 2 ingredients - cornstarch and lotion. This homemade dough is really easy to make!
Fun counting activities to make learning enjoyable while building a strong numeracy foundation in your preschoolers.
Check out all the different ways to play.
Keep your kids busy with these 10+ fun activities that also make them get some exercise!
This imaginative play set up is easy to put together and loads of fun! Make a river in your sandpit that really holds water!
First art experiences are so incredible to witness!
Inside: Learn how to make beautiful nature bracelet using colorful objects from nature. You know how we made daisy chains when we were little girls and pretended to be fairies or princesses decorated with the most beautiful flowers? Well, nature bracelet is even more fun and will be a perfect activity for girls to play in a
Keep your kids busy with these 10+ fun activities that also make them get some exercise!
Do you have bored kids at home? No problem, break out the painter's tape because these fun activities are easy to create for toddlers and preschoolers! They're perfect for busy moms and dads on a budget using cheap supplies you probably already have at home.
It's time to get the kids outside and go on a fun nature walk! Kids love playing outside and exploring the world around them. If you've got endless amounts of dandelions like us, get our printable lion page and go on a dande-lion adventure! This is a fun and easy montessori activity that allows the
Laura @inspiremyplay Founder of @inspiremyplay, Early Years teacher for 11 years and mummy to three gorgeous girls. I'm passionate about about the benefits of play in early childhood. This is the perfect activity for anyone who’s lawn has been left just a bit too long without a mow! It’s really simple to prepare using a circle of cardboard and a pencil to create some holes. You can then thread the dandelions through the holes to create the lion’s mane. This activity is so good for fine motor skills and a great little boredom buster! The Benefits of Natural Resources for Creative and Sensory Play Natural materials are great to include in a child's sensory play. They encourage children to closely observe and explore the world around them and use all their senses since they have a variety of textures, scents, sizes, colours, and sounds. Loose objects like twigs, flowers, leaves, shells, and sand are all readily available open-ended materials which can be used on their own or combined with other items to foster creativity and imagination. While playing with natural materials, children are engaged in decision making and problem-solving opportunities. Natural materials can be taken apart, put back together again, combined, moved, and lined up. By exploring, manipulating, arranging, designing, stacking, and building with the materials in a variety of ways, children are able to be artistic, explore, design and collaborate. Natural resources inspire outdoor play and exploration and can also be found in natural surroundings. Exposure to nature gives children opportunities to discover and explore new things, solve problems, take risks, unleash their creativity and develop a sense of wonder. Dandelion Threading For this activity we took a circular piece of cardboard with holes in it and walked around our back garden collecting dandelions to create a lions mane. Cut a piece of cardboard into a circle; Using a pencil, punch holes around the edge of the cardboard and draw a lions face using marker pen; Then let your child collect as many dandelions as they want to thread through the holes to create the lions mane. Other Nature Play Ideas Natural materials can be used in a variety of ways for learning activities. Toddlers and preschoolers absolutely love combining art and craft with nature so if you are looking for more ideas you could try: Leaf printing. This is a great kid's activity. It can be combined with a nature walk to collect the leaves and even a bit of fine motor practice with a pair of scissors to cut them off the tree. A nature colour hunt is the perfect spring or summer activity to get kids outdoors and appreciating the world around them. A nature treasure hunt. Gofindit is a nature treasure hunt that encourages kids to explore the natural world. It's great for taking on walks, trips to the beach or for playing in the garden. Read our full review here. Creating a sensory tray for children to start exploring their senses while honing their motor abilities. We love small world set ups and natural resources are great to incorporate into small world play. You can read about some of our favourite small world themes here. Get your FREE ebook For more simple DIY recipes & ideas for sensory play at home download your Beginner's Guide to Sensory Play by subscribing to Inspire My Play today. Get Yours Now
Chocolate oobleck is the perfect sensory material to use in a Valentine's sensory bin or as fake mud for play.
Keep your kids busy with these 10+ fun activities that also make them get some exercise!
with the plan to stay home the next few weeks, i’ve hopefully gotten through the worst of my panic mode about the fact that i forgot to buy any cauliflower WHATSOEVER lol. seriously woke up a…
Keep them busy creating and playing while stuck at home.
Making your own DIY nature paint brushes is a fun and unique way to create art while also getting outside and exploring the world around you.
Laura @inspiremyplay Founder of @inspiremyplay, Early Years teacher for 11 years and mummy to three gorgeous girls. I'm passionate about about the benefits of play in early childhood. This post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and go on to make a purchase, I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you). Please read my disclosure policy for more details. Today I'm talking small world sensory bases! Basically that's the stuff you create your small world on! Whether you're setting up a farm, seashore or dinosaur land there are so many great options to bring small world play to life and ignite children's senses at the same time! I share some of our favourites here. There are numerous benefits to small world play. Nurturing imagination, exploring new materials, acting out scenarios from real life, building language and developing social skills are just some that come to mind! In my previous post in the Resources for Play series I talked about some of the key resources needed to set up small worlds. Today I wanted to give you some inspiration of the types of sensory bases that you can use alongside these to set up amazing small worlds! Some of the sensory bases I've included are edible or taste safe, which are perfect for little ones who are still mouthing. Others are brilliant quick fixes on those days when you haven't got a lot of time to set something up. And there are several options that offer amazing sensory experiences, but are on the messier side! Whatever you're looking for I hope it sparks some ideas and encourages you to incorporate more small world play into your day! Wherever relevant I've included recipes so you can try it out for yourself. You can find links to all of the supplies mentioned in this post via the buttons below. Buy Sensory Play Supplies (Amazon US) Buy Sensory Play Supplies (Amazon UK) 1. Water Nothing beats play involving water! It takes minutes to set up and is guaranteed to keep little one's entertained. We often add blue food colouring to our water to enhance the look. Plastic animals, sea creatures, shells and pebbles are great additions to these play set ups. Buy Small World Play Supplies (Amazon US) Buy Small World Play Supplies (Amazon UK) Freezing water is another option and great for setting up polar small worlds. Or make an ice rink like we did for these penguins! 2. Bubble Foam As an alternative to water why not make up some bubble foam? It's great fun and makes a wonderful base for some ocean play. To make bubble foam put 1 part tear free bubble bath (or washing up liquid) to 2 parts water into a bowl. We usually do 1/2 cup of bubble bath and 1 cup of water at a time. If you'd like to colour your bubble foam add a little food colouring at this stage. Mix it up using an electric hand mixer until you start to get stiff peaks and then scoop it out into a tray for play. We usually make 3 or 4 batches of different colours to fill a tray. Get your FREE ebook For more simple DIY recipes & ideas for sensory play at home download your Beginner's Guide to Sensory Play by subscribing to Inspire My Play today. Get Yours Now 3. Play Dough It's no secret that we absolutely love play dough set ups in our house. I can't think of a more versatile resource! It also makes a great base for children to make their own small worlds. Homemade play dough takes a matter of minutes to make and you can easily change the colour to suit your small world theme! You can find our play dough recipe on this post 4. Sand Sand is great to incorporate into small world set ups. I especially like using kinetic sand because you can mould it and shape it easily without needing to get it wet. Because kinetic sand clumps together it also tends to create less mess than real sand! 5. Soil, Mud & Grass Small world play doesn't need to be indoors! You have a whole host of ready made sensory bases in your garden! A flowerbed, plant pot, pile of stones, collection of bark or garden lawn are great places for small world play. You could also collect up a selection of these resources and set them up in a tray inside. For indoor play a length of artificial grass is an easy option to have at your finger tips! We have a roll of artificial grass under our sofa, which gets used with our train track, building blocks and all sorts of small world set ups. 6. Cloud Dough This is one of the messier bases on this list but is such a great, sensory experience! Cloud dough is powdery but can also be moulded into shapes. It keeps for up to 6 months when stored in an air tight container, which means you can get lots of use out of the same batch. To make basic cloud dough simply combine 4 cups of flour with 1/2 cup of oil. If you're intending to use the cloud dough with a child who is still mouthing, cook the flour on a baking tray first at a temperature of 160F/70C for 5 minutes, in order to ensure any bacteria is killed. You can make brown or 'soil' cloud dough by substituting one cup of flour for a cup of cocoa powder. This is one of our favourite ways to use cloud dough! For some really messy play you can turn soil cloud dough into mud by adding a few spoonfuls of water, like we did for this farm small world above. Cloud dough can also be coloured by adding powder paint or grated chalk to the mixture, but be aware that this won't be taste-safe. To make this space scene I grated some charcoal into the flour and oil mixture. I also added a bit of bio glitter to give it a sparkle! 7. Artificial Snow It's not often that we get a chance to play in real snow in the South of England so I love to use it as a base for small world set ups. The quickest and easiest method is to buy some instant snow. Instant snow comes as a powder and all you need to do is add a bit of water and it expands in size. It's great fun and a good one to have in the cupboard for small world and sensory play. If you have time for a bit of DIY you can also make your own artificial snow. To make ours we used 4 cups of shaving foam mixed with 4 cups of cornflour (cornstartch). This should make a powdery snow that's also mouldable- a bit like cloud dough. It's not an exact art so just keep adding a bit more shaving foam until you get the desired consistency. 8. Rice Coloured rice is such a fun base for sensory play but it can also be used very effectively in small world play. Green rice works especially well as grass or use brown rice to emulate soil. Learn how to colour rice on this post here. 9. Spaghetti I just love the colours in this spaghetti ocean! And spaghetti is a great way of adding an interesting sensory element to small world play. To colour spaghetti simply cook the spaghetti as usual and then add a few drops of food colouring. Use tongs to toss the spaghetti in the food colouring and then remove any excess by rinsing the spaghetti. To make this spaghetti ocean I divided the spaghetti up and coloured some green and some blue. 10. Cereals If you're looking to set up small worlds for a toddler, sensory bases made of cereal are a great place to start. Because these are edible you can be confident that little ones can play safely and it won't matter if they have a little nibble too! Crushed up shreaded wheat, cornflakes or porridge oats all work really well. We love this type of base for farmyard play, diggers or a dinosaur themed set up. Looking for resources to pair with your small world bases? Do check out our post on the best resources for small world play.
Do you have bored kids at home? No problem, break out the painter's tape because these fun activities are easy to create for toddlers and preschoolers! They're perfect for busy moms and dads on a budget using cheap supplies you probably already have at home.
Keep your kids busy and having fun inside on rainy winter days with this selection of 50 fantastic indoor activities for kids. Easy crafts + games.
Are you looking for the best sensory activities for preschoolers or older kids? This ultimate list of sensory activities for kids of all ages will give you tons of ideas! From the easiest homemade playdough recipe to sensory bins and bottles, this list will provide ideas for hour of fun sensory play for the children.
These simple drawing ideas for kids is shadow art created with basic art supplies and the sun! Shadow art is a fun STEAM activity for kids of all ages
Frozen dinosaur eggs is an awesome and easy activity for your kids. Building their fine motor skills through fun imaginative science play! So grab some balloons and dinosaurs and let the fun begin!
A collection of fun and educational shape activities for preschoolers to develop their early understanding of geometry.
Practice important sensory skills with a fun box activity. Your child will love playing detective with this DIY Guess What's in the Box game!
Learn how to make a bouncy ball using 3 simple ingredients! These DIY bouncy balls are SO COOL! It's such a great craft that also doubles as a science experiment! Kids and adults can make a homemade bouncy ball toy in just a few minutes. They're so easy to make and a whole lot of fun to play with! This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a small commission which helps us run this website. How to Make a Bouncy Ball Learn how to make a bouncy ball in less than
Read this post for simple sensory play ideas for babies. Water play, sensory bottles and many more easy ideas for encouraging play with your baby.
This Jello Play Dough is an easy recipe to make for sensory play and can be used in your literacy activities.
For a fun variation on regular play dough try making sand play dough! This play dough is perfect for summer and can be whipped up in just 5 minutes!
Get creative with all of those boxes you are receiving! Here are 20 ways that you can use cardboard for kid-friendly activities.
Set up this ice excavation activity and invite your children to explore ice sensory play and see what treasures they can find! Frozen ice sensory play ideas :: ice excavation The idea behind this invitation to play is to freeze interesting items inside blocks of ice for your children to release and […]
This muddy animal oobleck recipe is the perfect sensory activity for preschoolers. My children adore playing with sensory bins, hence why I have a lot of sensory table ideas all over the blog. I love
Ring it on! This easy paper plate craft at home makes a DIY ring toss game for kids using Crayola supplies and items you already have on hand.
Recycle large jugs or juice bottles into these funny characters with colored tape and google eyes. Roll up paper or foil balls and make up some fun easy rules for your crowd! pic via
Stuck inside on a rainy day? Get your kids moving with these Indoor Energy Burning Activities for Kids. 20+ fun and easy gross motor games and activities to try.
Every parent has likely been in a situation where a child is asking for attention but you have too much on your plate to do so. So you need to quickly occupy your kid with something to do in order for you to complete your tasks. This list of fun activities will come in handy for such emergencies. Some of these ideas can be adapted for toddlers, while others will work perfectly on older schoolchildren.
