Polka Dot Sensory Bag for Babies

This afternoon, with Brad outside mowing the lawn and Miss G being his water / sweat rag girl {hah!!}, I thought Sam and I would try something fun while doing our daily tummy time play.   Since our tummy time painting was a hit a few days ago, I figured we’d give a sensory bag a go this time around. My initial thought was to create a quick and easy bag that was clear gel or shampoo based, but we had neither on hand… so water it was!

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I knew I had a bag of colourful counters tucked away in my craft drawer, and since our magnetic polka dot sensory bag based on the book Press Here was such a hit with Grae, I figured that we’d try a simplified version for Sam – a polka dot sensory bag for babies!

To put it together, I used a large zip-close bag, some colourful counters, some water, and some clear packing tape.

All I did was pour some water {not much – maybe about 600 ml?) into the bag, add the colourful counters, and seal it up, doing my best to remove as much of the air as possible.

Then, just to be safe, I taped the top edge shut.  {This could really be done on all 4 sides to strengthen the seams.}

Here’s what the finished polka dot sensory bag looked like…  Simple, colourful, and inviting.

While I was at it, I decided to quickly put together a magnetic version using these colourful counters and one of these magnetic wands just in case Miss G got tired of her water / sweat rag duties outside and wanted to play alongside her baby brother {because who wouldn’t really?}.

Then it was time to invite Sam to play.  I’d originally set him up on a white towel so that there would be a nice amount of contrast between the surface he was playing on and the counters floating in the water, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t going to work to have the bag just sitting there loose {duh!}  The first thing he wanted to do?  Put as much of it as he could in his mouth! {As you do when you’re a teething baby.}

We quickly rectified the situation by taping the bag down to our surface – the foldable gymnastic mats we recently picked up from Ikea {but obviously any hard floor surface would be just fine}.  In order to keep the contrast, I placed a couple of white sheets of printer paper underneath the bag before taping all four sides down to the mat.

Then it was actually time to play.

It’s hard to tell what babies are thinking, but Mr. Sam was definitely interested.

He watched very closely as the dots moved around and you could see him trying to capture them.

Tummy time wise, this was a complete success.  Our physio goals right now are to increase the amount of time he spends playing on his tummy and have him reaching for things and beginning to pivot, and this activity touched on all three of those things.  In fact, I think he very happily stayed playing on his tummy for one of the longest amounts of times he ever has, which is fantastic.

Here’s a little peek at him playing a long ways in…

{still on his tummy and still interested!}

Of course, once he was ready for a break, we sat him up and used his feet to play instead, and Big Sister thought it was pretty hilarious when she walked in and found his little toes tapping on the water bag while dancing to Meghan Trainor. ☺

 

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