DIY sensory play activity for your toddler

Having been a pre-school teacher before I became an elementary school teacher, I became very familiar with sensory play activities.  I would set up different areas in the classroom with activities that the children were able to participate in.  Two questions may come to mind when you think about sensory play: What is it exactly?  And why is it beneficial to my child?  Sensory play or activity helps children learn by stimulation from sense: touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing.  Having your children do this helps them explore and learn in different ways and encourages them to naturally learn to use scientific process while they create, investigate and play.

A few days ago, I was dropping my son off to school and his teacher Ms.Angela introduced me to a new sensory activity she had set up in her classroom.  She told me all the kids loved it, and she thought it would be a great idea for a blog (she and I always talk and share our teaching tools and methods we have/are using in our classrooms).  I thought it was a brilliant idea!  Thanks to Ms. Angela here is an activity you can do in your home with your kids.  It is very simple and can be done with things you have lying around the house.

Materials:

Any large plastic bottle (water bottle works well)

Any small objects such as: feathers, buttons, paper clips, legos, coins, small ball, beads, small figuring’s, or puzzle pieces.

1 cup of rice

scissors

punch hole

camera

card stock

laminator

key ring holder

What you need to do:

1. First take pictures of all the small objects individually
2. Paste the pictures on individual square cut cardboard stock paper and laminate them.
3. Punch holes in the corner of each card stock square and put onto a key ring.
4. Add all the small objects into a bottle with the grain or rice.
5. Shake it up. You can put a little bit of glue onto the cap so it will stay on and be harder for your little one to open.
6. There you have it, have your child look at the objects on the cards and look for it in the bottle and see how many they can recognize or find!!!

My son absolutely loves playing with this! He enjoys looking for the objects in the bottle and he gets very excited when he can name or find them all!