Sensory Tubs

I've been trying to think of activities to do with Kacie since we can't play outside much. My friend Amanda has an AWESOME blog filled with fun learning activities for babies and toddlers. (website:  Dirt and Boogers) One day I spent Kacie's whole naptime reading her ideas. Her son is a little older than Kacie, so for some of the ideas I had to figure out how to adapt for a younger child.  One afternoon Kacie and I went to Dollar Tree to pick up some goodies to play with and try some of the ideas from the blog.

The first thing I wanted to do was a Sensory Tray . Basically, you put a bunch of different items of different sizes, shapes, and textures on a tray or in a big plastic bowl. My friend's website had several cute themes, but for the first time I just put in some random things. I put beans, these blue pebble things, measuring cups, little plastic shot glasses, and some plastic decorative safety pins in a bowl and sat it in front of Kacie. The idea is for her to just explore and play for as long as she wants to.  I was very happy with how it turned out. She played with this stuff for almost 45 minutes. That's a LIFETIME in toddler time. She had so much fun and I only had to stop her from putting things in her mouth 2 times at the very beginning. It works with all their senses (except for taste in this activity!) and works on gross and fine motor skills.

Here are a few pictures, but they don't really do justice to how fun it was to watch her. I gave her some ideas at first about scooping and pouring the beans, but she took the reins from there and had a blast!

She has played with this same bowl a few more times. I need to put some other things in it and mix it up! I'm excited about all the new ideas!