Under the Sea Sensory Activities

Last week we had two activities with an "Under the Sea" theme. Both activities involved sensory play. I'm sure over the years we will have many more "Under the Sea" themed activities! 

Activity #1
The first activity involved a bit of messy play! We are still somewhat new to messy play, so there's a bit of hesitation with one of my littles. For this activity, I purchased cheap shaving cream and use food coloring to color it blue to represent water. I gathered several of our sea animal collection and added it to our tray of shaving cream. I thought there would be hesitation (and I was right), so I had a bowl of warm water beside this. They could "save" the animal and wash it, which eliminated some of the "mess" - fine by me! By the end, I had one little alllllll in the shaving cream with her hands! 

I can't wait to try other messy play ideas when it's warmer out and we can do them outside!
Activity #2:
The second activity consisted of a sensory bin with rice, sea animals, scoops, and mini bowls. For this activity, I dyed rice different shades of blue and added the animals. Later I added scoops and bowls because my littles LOVE to scoop and pour! They are still learning  pretend play and they much prepared scooping and pouring! It still made for a cute activity and they loved it!
 We used the same sea animals from the previous activity.


Hands on with Fractions & Decimals

Happy Friday! Today I am sharing an activity you could use at home or in the classroom when teaching fractions and decimals! This activity works well to provide a visual base ten model for students while learning the concept of fractions and decimals in tenths. We used a dry erase board for a little extra fun, but you could easily use pencil/paper.

Materials:

  • Natural craft sticks
  • Colored craft sticks
  • Dry erase board, paper/pencil, etc. 

 I used a total of ten craft sticks each time to represent a base ten model. The colored craft sticks are what we were naming as a fraction and a decimal.


This activity could be used at the beginning of a unit to introduce the topic OR it could easily be used in math centers in a classroom! Students could create their own model and then identify the fraction and decimal.

Sensory Bin

Sensory bins are one of our favorite activities around here and I try hard to always have a sensory bin out! This style of sensory bin is always my little ones FAVORITE, so you could say it's a "regular" around here. It's so incredibly easy to put together and the materials are all budget friendly!

Materials:

  • Beans (any kind will do)
  • Various types of utensils (here I have wooden scoops, tongs, and a measuring cup)
  • Mini bowls (I believe they are for condiments)
  • Mini plastic shot glasses (YES, you read that right! They are the PERFECT size for sensory play!)
My girls LOVE to scoop and pour, so this is ALWAYS a hit! It is one we keep on rotation all the time. I change up the utensils every now and then, but the main components are always the same.



Sensory Play

Happy Friday! I'm popping in quick to share TWO sensory play experiences we've had lately. I always, always have a sensory bin out and usually switch them out every two weeks or so. These two activities didn't go in our sensory bin. We kept them separate, but enjoyed them so much.

Sensory Play #1: Every now and then I find this play foam in the Target Dollar Spot. I always grab it when I see it! This month we used green for St. Patrick's Day! Play foam is neat because it can form together to create a ball, but it's flexible and squishy enough to stretch and flatten (we made "pancakes" with it). It doesn't last very long in our house because things stick to it and it becomes a little icky (especially after being used as a basketball!), but it's always a fun activity with a different texture!
Sensory Play #2: Our occupational therapist recently brought us water beads and they are AWESOME! One of my kids loved squishing her hand down in them and loved the feel of it. One didn't prefer it, so we worked on pincer grip by having her transfer them from one container to the next. My oldest really enjoyed water beads as well! This is going to be a MUST in our sensory play from now on!

Mini Shape Book

Happy Thursday! I'm here to share a mini shape book I made that is the perfect size for an activity on the go! We are still working on shapes and colors, so I wanted to add an activity that would work on both.

On each page I added a new shape, but kept the same language "This is a...". Repetition is SO good for little ones and it's the way they learn. Here is an interesting article about why toddlers love repetition. So when your little one asks to read the same book for the 100th time - remember it is good for them (even if it can drive a mama crazy at times!).
I wanted repetition in this book so that once they mastered identifying shapes, they could begin to "read" the book themselves and feel success! To add a little bit of matching fun, I cut out felt shapes so they could identify and match shapes for an activity to go with the book.
I love to have various activities in my diaper bag to use at long appointments, at the baseball field, or anywhere on the go! This makes an easy activity to grab and throw in our bags and it doesn't take up a lot of space!

Shape Sort

A few weeks ago I shared this set of shape manipulatives that I scored at a local consignment shop! We have used them over and over for the past few weeks with exploring shapes!

This week I used painters tape to create four shapes (rectangle, triangle, square, circle) on our hardwood. We have sorted the shape manipulatives several times into each category. We've also just practiced walking and jumping on the shape while saying the shapes name! Such an easy way to discuss shapes every day when we walk right over them!



Shape Fun Outside

Last week while the weather was nice we should our SHAPE fun outside and combined it with a little bit of gross motor fun! I drew 6 shapes on our driveway in chalk: square, rectangle, circle, triangle, heart, and star. 

How did we work on MATH with GROSS MOTOR skills?

  • We identified shapes.
  • I called out shapes for them to run to.
  • We jumped on shapes. This works on jumping in a stationary position. 
  • We jumped from shape to shape, working on the skill of jumping forward.  

After some shape fun, the littles wanted to play basketball with big brother and draw with chalk (worked on pre-writing skills!). There are so many fun ways to work on various skills outside!


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