Christmas Swirls

Christmas is full of sensory experiences.  Today I pull out some potato starch and we made goop.  You can use corn starch as well.  I just found a bunch of potato starch on clearance, so I stocked up.  My kids love this activity we do it often.  Add water to make a thick substance and add a few drops of food coloring.  Start swirling.  This uses some great fine motor skills.

 It starts to get ugly after a bit but just add a few more drops of color and your off again.

Christmas Sensory Play

We are starting to think about Christmas and winter.  Today I am sharing some of the sensory activities that we have been playing in lately.

First is a bucket of grain filled with snowflakes and trees.  I used grain as our base but you could use many different items such as rice, beans or popcorn.  We talked about the trees and colors while using some different utensils to dig.  

Second, is a pan filled with salt.  Salt is a great sensory experience and can be used as snow.

Adeline really got into hiding her hand in the salt.

Christmas tree ornaments;
We made ornaments using salt, cardboard and buttons.

Sensory Corn

Today we made Indian Corn.  Talking about the colors and bumpy and corn.  First, we glued some ripped colors onto a piece of foam and then glued the popcorn on top of that.

Our finished product.

When we finished we did some corn scooping.  This is a simple activity but great for fine motor skills.

Sensory Learning

Today we learned with corn starch.  Corn starch is a great inexpensive sensory item.  First we worked on scooping and spooning until that turned messy.  If you child needs to work on using a utensil these type of activities provide some extra practice and also work on fine motor skills.

We used both a scoop and a spoon.

Once things started to get messy and Adeline wanted to put her hands in it we moved on to a sensory bin with corn starch and numbers.  I have been teaching Adeline her numbers with flashcards but I like to reinforce everything with a game or activity of some sort.

One of my little tricks is, I love to find Scrabble games or Rummy O games at yard sales for a few cents.  I love using the tiles for different learning activities.  Today we used our Rummy O tiles to reinforce numbers.

Adeline enjoyed dusting for the tile to discover her number.

I admit we made quite a mess with this activity but it was fun.

Prewriting Activities

I have been working with Adeline on making lines.  When teaching children to make lines it is important to teach from the beginning, to start at the top and move down.  So when we make lines we always say "down, down, down".

Right now I am working towards Adeline making a cross shape.  This is a developmental skill when children are able to cross over lines.  She is making vertical and horizontal lines so I think we are on our way.

We also work on circles and our favorite song to sing the is "The wheels on the bus go round and round".

I am using three different things to practice our writing; a chalkboard, a dry erase board. and corn meal.
I keep my corn meal in the freezer to give an extra sensory experience when touching it.

When using the corn meal I use two pans, one for me and one for Adeline.  I will draw a line in mine and say "down, down, down"  she will imitate.  We also make horizontal lines and I usually say "side, side, side".
She will do with me for a few times and then she wants to play with it and that is OK.  Corn meal has a great texture and is great for fine motor skills.

We are also working on the chalkboard.  I will draw some vertical lines and Adeline will trace over them with water and a paint brush.   We did need to start with by doing hand over hand, but she is starting to do this on her own now.

Here we made some lines down and now Adeline is working on going "round and round".  I love using a large chalk board on the wall because she is able to use her whole body in this activity.  I found our chalkboard at a thrift store.

 Prewriting is important it helps to create a foundation for good writers later in life.

Swirling Colors

We had so much fun today.  This is not the project I planned on doing it just evolved into this and it was great.  I started by making the recipe for cornstarch muck.  We did not measure today; I just poured in two boxes and slowly added water, mixing with my hands until I had the consistency I wanted.  If you add too much water you will just have a liquid mess so add just a little at a time.

We just added a couple drops of food color to see what happens and we got these beautiful swirls.  My kids really enjoyed this.  Once the swirls were all mixed together and it was getting ugly we added a few more drops and kept swirling.

This turned into a fun color sensory activity.

  

Alphabet Muck

I love how something so messy and fun can also teach.  Today we played in muck and reinforced our alphabet.  When we where finished Adeline walked around singing her version of the alphabet.  I was sweet.

Muck is a great base to use to add any theme.  You could add colors, shapes, numbers, it has endless possibilities.  It also works fine motor skills.

The recipe I used was:

3/4 cup cornstarch
1/3 cup water
food color if wanted

Slowly add corn starch to water mixture.  Do not stir.  Let the mixture stand for 2-3 minutes.  Use hands to squeeze and mix together.

 I found these little letters a Discount School Supply.

Adeline really enjoyed this activity, I think next time we will use some spoons and ladles.