Sensory Bags |

Saint Patrick’s Day Sensory Bag

March 10, 2015 By Callie Leave a Comment

When Irish eyes are smiling….we make sensory bags with gold glitter!

I love what a sensory bag does for littles-the discovery, the sensation, the fun!

I love what a sensory bag does for a Mama-ten to twenty minutes of entertainment, a chance to talk about senses and colors and oh so much more, the inexpensiveness of it and oh yes it takes like three minutes to make.

Supplies-

Gallon Ziploc bag-the real deal so it won’t break

duct tape if you don’t trust your little from ripping the top open-I’m eying you boy moms.

hair gel

green food coloring

glitter-gold

a small St. Paddy’s day trinket-we used gold coins.

All of this can be found at your local Dollar Store as mentioned in my previous post.

Add supplies one by one in the bag. I did not mix anything up because I wanted Row to do that once the bag was closed. I simply dumped everything in and sealed.

And let them go! I loved the look on her face as the clear gel turned completely green. We talked about colors, shapes, and the sense of touch. A great extension for older kiddos-btw they love this stuff too. List words that start with “G”, describe attributes of the sensory bag.

Easy, fun, and lasts!!!!!

Are you doing any fun activities for St. Patrick’s Day? I used to make rainbow layer cakes in college-that was always cool!

Snowman Sensory Bag

December 5, 2014 By Callie Leave a Comment

This week was our final Kindermusik class of the semester. Row and I wanted to make sure all her toddler friends had a special surprise to receive at her class. I decided on making snowman sensory bags. We have done shaving cream sensory bags in the past and they’re a favorite. I loved it because it was developmentally appropriate, fun, and easy!

Supplies-

Ziploc bags-I usually use the gallon size but wanted them small for favors-I used snack size but if I make them again I would use quart size.

Foam in black-for the eyes and orange for the nose. Found at craft stores…only 89 cents a sheet!

Electrical Tape-to seal the top-and because it’s black like a top hat

Shaving Cream-dollar store!

Cut triangles for the noses out of the orange. Make them the easy way-cute a long strip and traingle them out!

Cut squares for the eyes out of the black. I made them into squares because SUPER EASY!

Fill half the Ziploc bag with shaving cream, add the nose and eyes. Seal. Add tape. DONE.

How easy! Roughly 20 minutes. Mind you Grandma was over and I do get so much done when she’s here and during nap time. Praise God we still have nap time!

Row loved them! They’re fun and a great sensory activity. You could add glitter and make it into a melting Olaf! Older kiddos would love it too! We also talked about body parts before we played and discussed where our eyes and noses are. We also talked about the color white, black, and orange. We used our five senses especially the sense of touch and discussed how the bag felt as we squooshed it.

Oh and Darcy the giraffe almost came with us to music-she loves those things!

Shaving Cream Sensory Bag

August 19, 2014 By Callie 1 Comment

Sensory bags are an easy way we as parents can encourage our children to learn through exploration independently, inexpensively, and easily.

Sensory bags enable our children to explore the world around them and discover using their five senses. Shaving cream sensory bags can easily be enriched for children as they grow as well! Tuck this one into your fun kid activities list! BTW-I have one of those on my Pinterest board should you want to go take a peek.

I stumbled upon a website called Growing a Jeweled Rose while teaching one year and simply love it. They have the most creative and fun activities for children of all ages. Fun things like sensory baths, themed play, mud play, ice play-it’s endless really.

Row is 22 months and loves exploring. I want her to feel comfortable in her environment. Part of that is desensitizing her to a variety of textures. A common way we do this is through sensory bags. Let’s make one! Have an older child? I’ll enrich this for you too! What does that mean? Enrich-I will show you how you can use this with older children by changing it up a bit!

Supplies-Ziploc Bag-I used the gallon size, shaving cream-dollar store!, food coloring, and duct tape DON’T FORGET THE DUCT TAPE! (Notice how in the picture there is no duct tape-um yeah.)

Shake your shaving cream and fill the bag halfway, add some food coloring drops-to start you could just do one color-we did two. Fill the remaining bag with more shaving cream and add the second color if you so desire. Zip. TAPE! Don’t forget the tape part or you will be sorry.

I like to let Row play with sensory bags somewhat supervised-meaning in the high chair with me in the kitchen. I enjoy giving her time to explore on her own casually checking and encouraging as needed. The shaving cream bags feel really cool! They only last a day or two but they’re fun and inexpensive. They feel cool to the touch and fluffy which is pretty neat!

This is also an easy rainy day activity!

Enrichment-hide objects inside and allow children to find while playing, mixing colors.

Four and Five Year Olds-Use science journals (notebook) to record what the bag looks like before being played with, have then draw a picture of what they predict will happen, and draw a picture of what did happen.

School Age-put letters inside and have children write a word that starts with the letter they found, put numbers inside-draw a picture with that many objects.

Have you used sensory bags before???