It’s no secret that we love sensory play in our house. Like a lot. Sadly, our recent move meant saying goodbye to many of the sensory materials that had become staples in our everyday play repertoire… (What – It doesn’t make sense to ship pounds upon pounds of coloured pasta, pea gravel, packing peanuts, dried beans, and glass gems?? Hmph.) And so we begin again! This week’s mission was replacing our stash of coloured rice, and did we ever! In fact, we now have 22 pounds of vibrantly coloured rice.
This morning I had a little bit of housework to do and Miss G suggested that she’d play with some freshly coloured rice I’d made while I got my clean on. It’d been a quite a while since she’d last opted to play with a rice bin or tray, so I was happy to hear that she was still excited about such a simple sensory activity. While I put the rice into small containers, she picked out items she wanted to use while playing with it. She gathered up a divided plate, heart-shaped ice cube tray, cup, scoop, bowl, and funnel and we laid everything down on a large blanket in the living room.
She got to playing right away and immediately mixed the different colours in the bowl while using the funnel. Watching the individual colours mix into speckled sea of rainbow colours is always so much fun (and so is crazy bed head ☺).
There was a lot of mixing, dumping, and pouring, but the favourite of the morning was definitely this little scoop paired with the funnel. She quickly learned that using the two together was a great way to fill the little heart-shaped ice moulds and we later on we even experimented with extending our funnel using a bubble tea straw.
After she was through playing, we scooped up the rice, added it to the bin of coloured rice we keep in the solarium, and shook the remaining grains off of the blanket outside. Easy, simple fun.
Recently, Gracen has become borderline obsessed with all things searching-based. She loves a good game of hide-and-seek, she adores playing ‘I Spy’, and there’s nothing better than a ‘Where’s Waldo?’ book. So this afternoon, after a busy morning filled with a morning walk, a first attempt at skating, and an impromptu hair cut, we decided to pull together a low-key searching activity indoors.
First, we rounded up some coins (aka treasure) and gave them a good scrub in hot soapy water {because money grosses me out}. (Of course you could always use something different as treasure…plastic gems, tiny toys, play money, etc.)
After drying off the coins, we spread them out on a plastic serving tray…
And hid the treasure with the coloured rice we made months ago(plain rice, sand, flour, dry pasta, beans, and cornmeal would all be good alternatives).
Voila – treasure hidden.
Next, we gathered a few treasure finding tools.
We laid our tray down on a towel for easier clean up, retrieved one of Miss G’s piggy banks for treasure collection, and the search began.
Searching…
Found something… Jackpot!
Clink! Into the piggy bank (cue Miss G’s ‘money, money, moneeeeey’ song and dance).
Grae had so much fun with this little game that I’m certain it will sit out in our living room for the next few days being enjoyed by our little search-obsessed girl time and time again.
♥
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After drying off the coins, we spread them out on a plastic serving tray…
