Tag Archives: sensory play

Airplanes and Clouds Sensory Play

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This has been a crazy and stressful school year for me, and as a result, I haven’t been blogging much. I’ve missed it, and I’m going to try to do more blog posts in 2020.

This activity is one Buddy and I did last summer, but I haven’t gotten around to blogging about it yet. I first saw the idea for an airplane sensory tub on Fun with Mama’s blog. Buddy loves airplanes, so I knew this would be a good activity for him.

I got the activity ready by getting a travel sized can of shaving cream and the lid to our sensory bin for the clouds. I also used a silver Sharpie, a ruler, and a black piece of construction paper to make a runway. Buddy has a bunch of planes, but we chose to use the metal ones from the dollar store for this activity. That way, if they got wrecked, they would be easy to replace. (They didn’t get wrecked though, which is a great thing.)

I showed Buddy how to make some shaving cream clouds on the lid. Then I let him have a try. Buddy isn’t always a kid that enjoys messy activities, so he was a little nervous about the shaving cream. But he quickly decided the foam was really fun.

Buddy and I flew the planes off the runway and into the shaving cream clouds. They quickly got very messy, but it was a lot of fun.

After a few runs, I got a tub of water and a sponge to wash the planes down. Buddy loved playing with the planes in the water as much as the foam.

Once the big piles of foam had been smashed down a bit, it was easier for the planes to fly “through the clouds” without it being such a mess. Then Buddy happily made them fly back and forth in the foam with the occasional trip to either the plane wash or the runway.

This activity was a huge hit with Buddy. He asked to keep the runway, and he still uses it from time to time when he plays with planes.

Cloud Dough Construction Play

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Buddy announced last weekend he wanted to “do an activity”, which is his way of saying he wanted to try something a little different. After talking through some ideas, we decided to pull out our cloud dough. We did our digging for dinosaurs activity with cloud dough about a year ago, and we haven’t done it since then.

Buddy doing our cloud dough dinosaur dig in 2018.

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The recipe for cloud dough is a 8:1 mixture of flour to oil. Originally, I made a batch with four cups of flour and a half cup of canola oil, and then I added a little bit more oil. I saved it in a Tupperware container, and a year later it was still the same texture! It was amazing! I decided to add another 2 cups of flour and 1/4 cup oil to give Buddy a little more cloud dough to play with.

I put the cloud dough in a 9×13 glass pan. Buddy asked to help bury the dinosaurs, and then he dug them out. He used a small spoon to dig and a small paint brush to brush them off. He had a lot of fun, but I was thinking of new things to do with the cloud dough.

Buddy still loves doing his construction site sensory bin, so I thought it’d be fun to put the CAT mini trucks into the cloud dough. Those trucks made the cloud dough so much fun! Buddy had the best time putting cloud dough into the dump truck and having his T-Rex drive it around.

I also pulled out a Dixie cup and helped Buddy make some sandcastles. The bulldozer and backhoe had a lot of fun knocking them down. Then we would make more sandcastles and start over again.

The cloud dough was so much fun, and I’m glad I pulled it out. It made a huge mess, but it was worth it. (I needed to clean my kitchen anyway.) Looking back at the pictures from our cloud dough activity last year, I wish I had thought to put Buddy in his apron, like I did then! He needed an outfit change when this activity was done (and I did too!) But we had a lot of fun together for an hour. It’s always great to do something special with materials I already have at my house.

Ice Cream Shop Sensory Bin

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Buddy loves sensory bins, so I’m always excited when I see a new sensory bin idea. When I saw the Ice Cream Sensory Bin on Fantastic Fun and Learning’s blog, I knew Buddy would love it! He loves playing with cotton balls, and he loves ice cream, so it’s perfect!

I set up the bin by putting a bag of cotton balls into a silver bowl. Then, I put some toppings into old baby food containers. I used two different types of pony beads (circles and stars) to be sprinkles. Fantastic Fun and Learning used sequins, but I thought beads would be easier to separate back out after we’re done. I also found a few red pom poms to be cherries. I finished the bin by adding a few plastic bowls and spoons and an ice cream scoop.

Buddy was thrilled when he saw the bin. He immediately started scooping out ice cream and sprinkles into each bowl. Buddy loves to serve pretend food, and this was even better because of the sensory aspect. He seemed to really enjoy the scooping from one container to another. 

Once Buddy had played around with the materials for a bit, I was a customer to the ice cream shop. I would place an order, and Buddy would make it for me. Buddy thought this was a lot of fun!

Of course Buddy made himself ice cream sundaes and had a lot of fun pretending to eat them. 

This was such a fun sensory bin! Buddy loved it and has done it a couple other times since our original activity. It’s being added into our regular sensory bin rotation as a pre-dinner time distraction.

Digging for Dinosaurs

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Buddy loves his dinosaurs, so this summer, I made a dinosaur dig for him. I originally saw the idea for dinosaur archaeology on Busy Toddler’s blog. As soon as I read that blog post, I knew I needed to try it!

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

The dinosaur dig was made with cloud dough, which is a 8:1 flour to oil ratio. I used four cups of flour and a half cup of canola oil. After I mixed everything together, I didn’t feel like it was firm enough, so I added a little more oil. Then I buried five of Buddy’s small dinosaurs in the cloud dough, and set out a spoon for digging and a paint brush for dusting off the dinosaurs.

Buddy was so excited to find the buried dinos! He dug around with his spoon until he hit something. Then he dug it out and brushed it off carefully with the paint brush. 

Once Buddy found all of the dinosaurs, he wanted to keep playing. So he buried the dinosaurs again and dug them out… over and over! I gave Buddy a small paper cup and showed him how to make “sand castles” with it. That added an extra layer of fun to the activity. 
Eventually, Buddy asked for his large dinosaurs to join the party. Because when you’re three, more dinosaurs = more fun. 

Buddy played with the dinosaurs and the cloud dough for more than an hour. By the time we were done, it was a huge mess. But it was worth it because Buddy had so much fun! We put the cloud dough away in a Tupperware container, and I hope we will be able to reuse it again in the future.

Do you have any other ideas for sensory play? Please share in the comments.

Magnetic Letters Sensory Bin

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Buddy has been working on letters at preschool, so I’ve been keeping an eye out for fun alphabet activities to do at home. When I saw the idea of a magnetic alphabet sensory bin on Busy Toddler’s blog, I knew Buddy would love it. He plays with his construction site sensory bin all the time, but it’s been a long time since we’ve played in our rice bin. (Read more about our construction site sensory bin and our first rice bin here.) Even though I prefer black beans as a sensory bin filler, I chose to use rice because we have more of it. We don’t really have enough black beans to hide magnetic letters well.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I started by adding magnetic letters to the bottom of our sensory tub, and then I poured rice on top. The letters were completely hidden in the rice. I also pulled out an old cake pan, and I used a washable dry erase marker to write the alphabet on it. That way, Buddy could practice matching and identifying letters as he found them.

Buddy started with our large magnet (similar to this one). He put it in the rice, but he had a hard time getting any magnets to stick. Busy Toddler used a magnet wand instead, so maybe that works better for this type of activity. Buddy ended up pulling out the magnets and sticking it to his. The magnet wasn’t an effective tool, but he still enjoyed it. 

I pulled out a couple shovels, and Buddy was ecstatic! He was thrilled that he could now dig up the letters. Buddy asked me to play with him, so we both took a shovel and found letters. 

As we found letters, we matched them up to the letters on the cake pan. I used an old bag of magnetic letters, and there were some letter repeats. Any time we found a repeated letter, we stacked them on top of the match or put it on the edge of the pan. 

It took us awhile, but eventually we found all of the letters. But Buddy was having too much fun to stop! So he took the letters off of the pan and threw them back into the rice. I set the duplicate letters aside for the second round, so we only had one of each letter. 

We didn’t bury the letters quite as much for the second round, but Buddy was just as enthusiastic about finding them. 

This activity was amazing! Buddy played with the rice and letters for 75 minutes! (That’s forever in toddler time!) Then he decided he missed his beans and construction vehicles, so I switched the bin back. And Buddy played with those for another 20 minutes! It was a mess to clean up (beans are much neater than the rice), but it was so worth it. Buddy had so much fun, and it was great letter practice.

Do you have any fun alphabet activities? Please share in the comments!

Shape Sorting Sensory Activity

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Buddy still loves sensory bins, especially the construction site sensory bin that I blogged about here. He pulls out the bin of black beans and construction vehicles at least twice a week. When I saw the shape sorting sensory bin on Stir The Wonder’s blog, I knew it would be an easy adaption of our construction bin. I already had the shape buttons from my quiet book (read more here) and I had the bin of beans, I just needed to put the two together.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

To start, I took the trucks out of our sensory bin, and I dumped in a bag of shape buttons. Stir The Wonder used a muffin pan to sort the shapes. I decided to use an ice cube tray instead. I wanted to give Buddy lots of places to sort for all the different shapes. The extra spots on the ice cube tray also provided the opportunity to sort by shape, color, or size.

At first, Buddy was very interested about the shapes in his bin. He quickly started telling me all of the shapes and colors he saw. Buddy was happy to start pulling them out and putting them into different parts of the ice cube tray.

After awhile, Buddy decided he missed his CAT mini trucks. So he put them in the bin, and used them to help scoop and move the shapes into the ice cube tray. It took a lot of effort to try to scoop just the buttons and not the beans. 

Trucks make everything more fun!

I tried to encourage Buddy to find matches to put in the tray based on shape or color. Eventually, though, he just wanted to get all the shapes out of his “concrete”, so he could play trucks the way he normally does.

Overall, I was pleased to have a new way to practice shapes and colors. I think Buddy liked the variety with the sensory bin as well. The next time I try it, I may choose to use fine motor tools to grab the buttons instead of the trucks. But either way, it is a great way to practice both early math skills and fine motor skills.

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Pouring Water Sensory Play

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This week’s Water Wednesday was the rainiest day of the summer. It poured all day! Fortunately, I had planned a water activity that worked inside or outside. I originally got the idea of a water pouring station from Busy Toddler’s blog. Buddy loves to pour water, and his favorite bath toy is a cup for dumping water. I knew Buddy would love a pouring water activity.

First, I pulled out our sensory bin and a bunch of different cups. I also grabbed a funnel and an empty water bottle. Our two pitchers were both from the dollar store. The blue one was the water bottle that we used for the Bubbling Colors activity without the top. The other one I think was supposed to be for salad dressing. Both were perfect for toddler hands to lift and pour.

Buddy was so excited when I told him we were going to practice pouring water. He couldn’t wait to start!

He quickly poured out both pitchers into cups. I had hoped that he would pour the cups into other cups but he preferred to pour the cups into the open bin. He also poured into the funnel into the open bin. (Silly me thought he’d use the funnel to go into the water bottle or another cup!)Buddy had a lot of fun pouring water from the pitchers into other cups. He didn’t stop when a cup was overflowing, he just kept pouring all the water. When he wanted more water, I’d refill the pitchers. After awhile, the water on the bottom started to get a little deep, so I poured it out. (I didn’t want the bin to get too heavy for me to pick up and pour out.)

This was such a simple activity, but it was a lot of fun for Buddy. And it was a great real life skill that he got to practice too. I’d like to build up to Buddy using a small pitcher to pour a drink for himself. (A lot more work than just me getting it for him, but I know he’d love it.) I know we’ll be using the pitchers again this summer to practice pouring.

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Mighty, Mighty Construction Site Sensory Bin

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Buddy is really into construction vehicles right now, so I decided to do another construction sensory bin for this week’s Time To Read Tuesday. (Read about our other construction site sensory bin with shredded paper here.) I checked out the book Mighty, Mighty Construction Site  from our library to go with our sensory bin. Buddy loves Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site, so we were both excited to read the sequel.

*Disclaimer- This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I started by reading the book with Buddy. He loved all of the trucks from the other book and all of the new ones too. I loved the themes of friendship and teamwork. It’s a great book and definitely worth checking out or buying.

Then, I pulled out our sensory bin, poured in black beans, and added four mini CAT construction vehicles. I bought mine at the dollar store, but you can also get them here. They are really nice for the price, and all of the parts move the same way they do on the actual construction vehicles. Buddy was with me when we bought them a few months ago, but he hasn’t seen them since then. These new toys made the sensory bin extra exciting. 

I knew we had a bulldozer and a dump truck, but I wasn’t sure what the other two vehicles are. Fortunately, both were new friends added to Mighty, Mighty Construction Site. After looking at the pictures, we decided our other trucks were a backhoe and a front-end loader.

In the book, the front-end loader helps fill up the dump truck. We spent a lot of time doing that as well. Then Buddy tried using the backhoe and the bulldozer to fill up the dump truck. He had the best time filling up the dump truck, driving it around the bin, and dumping it back out. Buddy also loved grabbing handfuls of beans and dropping them.

This was one of my most successful activities in a long time. Buddy played with the trucks for over an hour! When we had to stop for dinner, he was hysterical about me putting it away. We compromised by picking up the beans and leaving them in the bin with the trucks. (Normally I keep my sensory bin fillers in an extra large ziplock bag in a cabinet.) We’ve played with it twice in the last week. It’s a mess, but Buddy loves it so much, it’s worth it. I know we’ll continue to play with our Mighty, Mighty Construction Site sensory bin often.

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Gardening Sensory Bin

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Buddy loves sensory bins, so it’s always fun when I come across a new sensory bin idea. I first saw the idea of making a gardening sensory bin on Frugal Mom Eh’s blog. Now that it’s spring, it is the perfect time to try it.

Buddy and I bought the gardening materials from the dollar store. I had him pick out some flowers he liked, and I bought some small plastic pots as well. We also bought a jumprope with carrot handles. I cut off the rope so we could use the carrots in the bin. We bought five bags of black beans at the grocery store, and the rest of the tools we already had at home.

Before we played in the gardening sensory bin, I cut down the stems of the plastic flowers with wire cutters so they would fit in the pots. I wrapped the ends with electrical tape to cover up the exposed wire. I also found some toy gardening tools that we’ve used with some of our other sensory bins.

The bin was set up with the flowers and some black beans in the pots and the carrots buried in the “dirt”. Buddy was very eager to play in the bin, and he immediately started taking out all of the flowers.  I hoped that picking out the flowers with Buddy would increase his interest in them, but it didn’t.

Buddy’s favorite part of the bin was the plastic pots. He loved scooping up the beans and putting them into the pots. Then he’d pour the beans out of the bin, and start over again. Buddy also loved banging the pots together and stacking them in one another.

I loved the black beans as a sensory bin filler. In fact, it is my favorite filler that we’ve tried. Buddy loves it as much as rice because it’s easy to rake, scoop, and pour. I prefer it to rice, though, because it’s much bigger and easier to pick up. Buddy also helped me pick up the spilled beans to put back in the bin (something he can’t do when we play with rice).

Overall, Buddy and I both were really happy with this sensory bin. It entertained him for a long time, and was faster to clean up than some of our other sensory activities. I’m sure we’ll do it again soon.

Construction Site Sensory Bin

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I first saw the idea of doing a sensory bin with construction trucks and shredded paper on Busy Toddler’s blog. I immediately loved the idea because it’s easy to set up and includes Buddy’s love of vehicles! We haven’t done a sensory bin with shredded paper since our Open the Barn Door activity in August. Back then, Buddy wasn’t interested in the paper at all. I was curious to see how his reaction would be different now.

To set up the activity, I put some paper from our shredder in a large bin and put it on the floor of the kitchen. Then, I placed some construction trucks in the paper. These were purchased at the dollar section of Target years ago, and are used more as a decoration in Buddy’s room as a toy. As a result, Buddy was especially interested in playing with these “new toys”.

Buddy first started driving the trucks around in the paper. I showed him how to use the digger to push paper around, and he tried to do it too. Then, Buddy discovered how to fill and dump the paper in the back of the dump truck. This was a lot of fun for him.

Buddy was just as interested in driving the trucks around on the kitchen floor as he was in the paper. The cars made a noise on the floor, which Buddy thought was very entertaining.

The last time we did a shredded paper sensory bin, Buddy wasn’t very interested in the paper. That wasn’t the case this time! Buddy thought the paper was a lot of fun! Once he tired of playing with the trucks, Buddy decided to play with the paper. I was expecting things to get messy, and boy, was I right!

Buddy threw paper everywhere and made a huge mess! Then, in typical toddler style, he decided to run around the house and leave a trail of paper in his wake. Once Buddy was “all done”, I threw him in his crib and swept the floor. It didn’t take too long to pick up the mess once Buddy was contained. Even though it was a messy activity, it was worth it to see Buddy have so much fun.

I’d love to try some new sensory bins this spring. If you have any great ideas for sensory bins, please let me know!