Coloured Rice Play

It's a rainy Friday so we are making coloured rice! Distribute rice into small snap lock bags, add 1tsp white vinegar & choice of food colouring to each bag, snap lock and let little hands help to mix the rice and colour for the start of a sensory experience. 

We are now waiting for the rice to dry on newspaper to play with it later today! 

After a couple of hours, the rice is dry and ready:

Posting Play

We used several different size shapes (milk bottle tops, pasta shapes and lids), we then posted into different size containers. This activity assists with brain development through cross patterning and transferring of objects, and through learning about size and space. Music was made as objects were tipped out and shaked. As the objects were picked up and dropped the fine muscles of the fingers developed and the little mind was entertained! 

Feathers - a cleaner messy play!

You can find colourful feathers at your local craft/sewing type shop and with the furry tickly texture these are a fantastic sensory experience for little hands. 

We used different containers to put (and tip out) them in, we blew kisses off our hands with the feathers, covered different body parts in feathers and Monnie generally carried them around with her while playing. As feathers fall they move slowly so excellent for developing eye tracking skills and as little hands pick the feathers up fine motor skills are developing, so essentially feathers help build the foundations for reading and writing!

Snow!

We are coming into a NZ summer, but the otherside of the world is coming into winter, so you can use this activity to teach what the snow might be like in all those Christmas Carols! 

Pour baking soda into a tray, add shaving cream slowly as you mix the two ingredients together (I made up ratio but probably used about 200g baking soda to 1/4 cup shaving cream). Check consistency to be crumbly and "snow like." 

We then sprinkled the snow, built a snowman, played with ping pong balls in snow and sang "Let it Snow." We did this indoors as raining outside today but it did make quite a mess which the vacuum cleaner soon dealt with!

Shaving Foam Messy Play

Monnie at 14 months didn't really like the texture (or taste!) of shaving foam. She preferred to use the utensils and cups to play, but when we added colour it made it a more magical experience for her and one I definitely recommend for you to take outside! 

Next time I'm going to add Baking Soda to the shaving foam to make snow! 

Skittles

Inspired by some friends who went ten-pin bowling recently we jazzed up toilet rolls with wrapping paper before setting them up as skittles and rolling the ball to knock them over! 

However the reality with a 14 month old was she preferred to play with them and eat them over a game of bowling but she did try picking them up, threw the ball a couple of times and then she wore them as a necklace (the skittles made for a threading activity too). We will try this game again soon and eventually she will learn how it goes! 

Lavender Playdough

Inspired by my sister-in-law & niece this week, they have chopped up some gorgeous lavender and sprinkled it into their playdough mixture. A fantastic way for the senses to explore. Playing will be an even more relaxing experience as the smell of lavender is released as you roll and move the playdough about. 

Adding lavender flowers to the playdough has made a lovely arrangement, it looks so pretty!

Can't wait to try this with Monnie!