Sensory Stepping Stones

SQUISHY, SPONGY, SPIKY, LUMPY, SCRATCHY, CRACKLING, SOFT

On some circular paper, aka Stepping stones to Dimples, I gathered some different textured & unusual feeling materials and Dimples glued them onto the stepping stones to make different feeling sensory mats.

A scourer cut in pieces, a Sponge cut in pieces, a different thicker lumpy sponge, some Bubble wrap layered, some Styrofoam & pom poms, some bristles of an old paint brush, and a gel filled zip lock bag.  All with way too much glue as usual so it took a long time for them to dry!
They were pretty successful none-the-less!

Dimples took off his socks and tip-toed over the sensory stepping stones. The look on his face said it all, he thought they were awesome.

With uhmmms, arhhhs, Ewwwws, giggles and funny faces he trotted over them pulling some pretty unusual facial expressions.  I asked him what they felt like?  " This is squishy & cold in my toes ",  "this ones a tiny bit spiky, it looks like hair?"  "this ones bumpy" "this one sounds funny, Ill pop it?"  "this one scratches my toes".  As he went through I expanded on what he was saying, bumpy, lumpy, uneven, squishy, scratchy, spiky, prickly, ticklish? and so forth as he chuckled to himself and had a good time jumping around....

He mixed them all up and tried again!
He closed his eyes and tried to identify them just through touch
He laid them apart and tried to do big slow steps, moved them close and did little fast steps.
He put them in a circle & went around & around until he fell down.
Then he felt them all on his hands and knees using his fingers to touch around the edges.
He threw them about like Frisbee's
Then his imagination kicked in, he told me he was jumping over a pond of crocodiles & that he cant fall off because he would splash in the water and get eaten as their lunch.

It was lots of fun and it was pretty fun for me as well, just to listen to his giggles and watch the expressions on his face...

Foam Bags to learn about Colour mixing & a Halloween treat

These Sensory Bags are great for learning the concept of colour mixing. We went one step further & turned them into Halloween Sensory bags

All you need is Shaving Cream/Foam, food dye & a Sealing Sandwich bag.

*Fill the bag from the bottom up with shaving cream, mush it around & get as much air out as possible.
*on a flat surface part down one side, this is where your first colour will go. We did Yellow
*Again, do the same on the opposite side & pour your next colour down, we used Red.
*Seal it & let your child mix the colours around. Gradually you will see the shades mixing. What colour do they make?

 They feel like a pillow to begin with, they are real puffy & filled. This is our colours to begin with.

 Mixing, moving, squishing, poking..............    wearing it on your head maybe? However you like to play with them will end up combining the colours!

There you have it, my little one learnt how red & yellow combine to make a bright Orange colour.  Because it is Halloween soon, we used the bright orange bag for a Halloween Sensory bag.

Carefully open one corner up & add some Black spiders, bats or snakes for Halloween. Make sure to push the foam down a little near your opening because the seal it bags wont work if they have the shaving cream in the sealing run.

Now you have a Spooky Halloween Sensory Bag.

We also did a big one with lots of colours, which made lots of different shades of green, pink, orange and it ended up looking like one big Rainbow Paddle pop inside (well i thought so,  i still feel like going to buy a rainbow paddle pop, YUM).