Diaper Science {and Sensory Experience!}

The other day, the kids were playing out on the deck when they ran to me with a gooey substance in their fingers asking what it is.  At first I was worried that it was something toxic or some type of insect egg and freaked out a little as H (2 years old) wanted to put it in his mouth.  A couple hours later I realized that H's diaper must have torn and this was the absorbent substance from his diaper (called sodium polyacrylate).  This inspired me to try an experiment with my twins (homeschool Kindergarten) to learn about The Science of Diapers...

Montessori-inspired DIY Weight Cylinders

If you love Montessori manipulatives, but can't afford the price-tag, try this easy DIY version of the Montessori Weight Cylinders using empty Play-Doh containers and dry beans.  Here's what we did for this little sensory / math activity...

Tot School - 18 months

Baby H is 18 months old.  I haven't been keeping up with taking photos of all our learning activities and explorations lately, but I really want to write about all the neat thing my little boy has been doing...

Sensory Play for Kids

All play is pretty much "sensory play" as kids use all their senses to explore their world.  However, I just love creating novel experiences for the little ones to engage in.  It's a joy sitting back and watching the exploration process and the immense pleasure my kids get from simple experiences that adults take for granted like putting their hands in something gooey or smelling something new.  Here is a collection of my favorite Sensory Play Experiences over the past year...

Making Soap With Kids

I bought a soap-making kit back in December, hoping to make holiday presents for everyone with the kids.  We ended up going to visit my in-laws a week earlier than planned, so the soap making never happened.  Instead, we made soaps as a little Valentine's Day activity.  The girls (3.5 years old) and I had so much fun.  It's such a great sensory and fine motor exercise for kids with even a little science thrown in...

Montessori Monday - Felt Board Fun {and learning}

I made a felt-board (also called a flannel board) for the twins when they were about 18 months old.  It was really easy to hot glue some flannel fabric to a large picture frame and then cut out various shapes from craft felt for them to play with (the pieces stick on without glue and are reusable).  I recently brought the felt board back out, and all three kids have been enjoyed it.  Other than just being generally creative with it, I also made some Montessori-inspired sensory activities out of felt for them to work on...

8 Montessori-Inspired Learning Activities with a Battleship Game

Games that are meant for older kids can be used for fantastic early learning activities for the younger set.  I recently found a travel-sized Battleship game for $5, and my 3-year-olds have been having a great time using it for all sorts of neat Montessori-inspired educational activities.

Montessori Monday: Pin Poking on Foil

My kids (3 years old) have never tried Montessori pin poking, which involves tracing a design onto paper and then cutting it out by making small pin holes close together along the outline of the image.  It's great practice for using the pincer-grip and a good exercise in concentration and precision.  I wasn't sure my kids were ready for it yet, so I thought we'd start out with a variation by poking pin holes into tin foil to make pretty patterns.  Here's how we did it...

Welcome to Baby School

Baby H is 13 months old.  Most of H's day is spent observing his sisters playing, but I always try to fit in some new learning experiences that are geared just towards him (mostly sensory explorations and Montessori-inspired activities).  I figure that it's time for H to get his own Baby School weekly post showing all the neat things he has been discovering lately.  I didn't get a chance to capture all the cool activities we've been doing this week, but I'll share a handful of them..

Sniffing Spices

Whenever I open the pantry, L and E (3) rush to the spices and say "I want to smell something!".  Usually this involves removing all the spice container lids and making a big mess.  Yesterday, I told them that if they sat at the table nicely, I'd take the spices out for them.  We explored our sense of smell with a spontaneous spice-sniffing sensory game..

Fine Motor Skills Practice with Playdough and Whole Cloves

I love activities that involve multiple senses.  This one combines fine motor skills work with the lovely aroma of cloves.  We've been going through the Story of the World, and just finished the chapter about the start of farming in the Nile Delta.  I decided that it would be fun to invite L and E (almost 3) to plant some 'crops' next to a playdough river using whole cloves...

Exploration with Bottle Caps and Lids

When I realized how many bottle caps and lids we throw away on a weekly basis (3 gallons of milk, 6 bottles of soda water, 12 squeezable applesauce pouches, etc...), I started saving them.  It wasn't long before my little collection had grown large enough to provide an entire morning's worth of entertainment for L and E (34 months)...

Paint Exploration

What do we do when my mess-averse husband is away all morning?  We paint!  The girls and I had fun exploring different ways to paint, from golf-ball painting, to painting with cars, to making bubble-wrap prints.  It wasn't so much about the final product, but the experience of exploring this medium in different ways...

Early Learning Fun with Unit Blocks

We have a big tub of unit blocks (each is one centimeter square, weight one gram) which I've been using with the girls when we play with our bucket scale (see our Blocks in Socks activity).  This morning while I was trying to catch up on some work, I let L and E (33 months) do some exploration and play with these unit blocks.  Later, I joined them and made up lots of fun math, spatial vitalization, and fine motor skills activities.....

Using Buttons to Make Decorative Bowls

Last week we took out our Sensory Button Tray and made decorative plates and bowls using buttons and Model Magic (this would work with Salt Dough or any air-dry clay as well).   Here's what we did ...

Sensory Play with Buttons

One of the stories in the book Frog and Toad are Friends is about Toad's missing button.  He looks everywhere for it and keeps finding buttons, but they are not his button (one is the wrong color, another the wrong shape, a third has the wrong number of holes, etc..).  This story inspired me to do a sensory play activity with buttons today for my twins...

The Great Rice Incident

My husband and I have an ongoing debate on the subject of what types of activities kids should do.  My opinion is that kids should be given as many opportunities for sensory exploration as possible; That splashing in water, digging in sand, and painting with their fingers (and feet) are an essential part of early learning.  My husband's opinion is that kids should not be given anything that could end up messy until they are old enough to play with it 'properly' (without making a mess).  One source of contention is the rice box...

Making Bagels (i.e. playing with dough)

A couple days ago I made gluten-free bagels (from Pamela's mix).  Since the recipe didn't require any eggs (I don't like the kids touching raw eggs because of Salmonella), I could let the twins help me out.

Plastic Frog Habitat and Games

One activity the kids are especially fond of is a little habitat for their plastic frogs.  I fill up a plastic tub with water add a log and some Lilly pads out of craft foam, and voila - hours of fun play ensue!

Sensory Exploration with Tapioca

I wanted this morning's Messy Morning project to be a fun sensory experience.  I've seen tons of recipes online for sensory play using homemade playdough, moondough, slime, and water beads.  I didn't have all the ingredients for those in my pantry, but I did have a package of tapioca, so I thought I'd experiment (I figured it couldn't turn out any worse than yesterday's Art Gone Wrong).

I mixed the pre-cooked dry tapioca with various amounts of water and some food coloring:

The resulting tapioca mixture was a substance with a really neat texture.  With smaller amounts of water, the tapioca resembled rubber and could be formed into all sorts of shapes (great for building 'sand castles').  With more water, it began taking on the texture of jello or slime.  The girls dug right in and had a blast doing some sensory exploration:

I also gave them some paper to make creations on:

L liked to blend the different colors of the tapioca together, while E enjoyed pressing down different colored globs with her spoon.  The bottom picture is mine - I wanted to demonstrate how 3-dimensional this substance can be.  The girls and I played for a long time and it was very cool to see the ideas they came up with for manipulating this substance.  I'd love to re-try the activity with the larger tapioca beads, too.