Okay, so before you see this awesome muddy monster truck derby sensory bin and think it’s all fun and games over here all day every day, here’s what you need to know… This morning Sam came along for the school run in undies, a t-shirt, and a sweater. In minus four degree {celsius} weather. No pants. No socks. No boots. And no jacket. Let alone a toque or mittens. Thank goodness we do the whole car blanket thing and he at least had that once in, but you guys – this morning was a doooozy. We got home, I moped a bit, he continued to shout and whine and throw things, and I made a cup of coffee and gulped the whole thing back in bed with the door closed. Then we hugged it out, agreed to start our morning over, cleaned up, and put this sensory bin full of mud and monster trucks together.
Thank fricken goodness sensory play and calm music have the power to turn a day around.
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Here’s what we used to put this taste-safe, scented, amazing-feeling sensory bin together…
- one of our go-to Sterilite sensory bins (any shallow bin will work)
- cornstarch from our play cupboard (when it comes to cooking with it, I always use an organic version)
- cocoa powder
- a couple of small toy monster trucks
and later on, these Green Toys cars too.
If you haven’t guessed yet, our ‘mud’ for our monster truck derby sensory play is CHOCOLATE oobleck!!
We didn’t even bother mixing this up in a separate bowl! Sam just dumped the cornstarch and cocoa powder straight into our bin…
Then whisked it up…
And mixed with a wooden spoon as I gradually added water.
You can play with the amounts of each ingredient to create thicker or thinner oobleck, but here’s our recipe…
CHOCOLATEY OOBLECK
- 2 cups of cornstarch
- 1/2 cup of cocoa
- 2 cups of water
Whisk the cornstarch and cocoa together well. Add the water and stir with a wooden spoon {or better yet – your hands!} until the oobleck has a uniform in texture.
I gave the chocolate oobleck one last mix before Sam very enthusiastically popped his monster trucks in.
{It goes without saying that Chloe was in on the fun in approximately 2 minutes flat. Seriously – this kitty of ours loves sensory play just as much as Grae and Sam do!}
It obviously depends on the size of your bin, but our layer of oobleck was thin enough to leave very visible monster truck tracks and Sam noticed right away.
He also realized how insanely neat oobleck is to touch and hold and squish.
As for the mess? With activities like this one, I just remind him to keep his hands in or over the bin. The truth is that the oobleck mud dries up on surfaces and is a cinch to wipe up, but I still don’t want it all over the kitchen obviously.
Part way through his play Sam asked for something for the monster trucks to drive over, so that’s when I offered him a few little Green Toys cars. We lined them up just like you’d see at a monster truck show and after getting a thorough drizzling of mud, the monster trucks began driving and jumping over them.
Although this addition was initiated by Sam, starting simple and adding things in here and there during play is one of my go-to methods for extending play activities.
Also his request? ‘A tool and a bucket’, plus later on, a ramp which I chopped from an almond milk carton. This was during a full one-hour play session and though I have a feeling that it would have lasted significantly longer, we had to put it on pause for nap time. With the promise that he could continue later on in the afternoon, of course.
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Knowing Grae’s love of popsicles, my mom sent her home from the Okanagan with a couple of new popsicle mould sets the other day. While I knew she’d be excited, what I wasn’t expecting was for two new popsicle moulds to keep her happily playing in her rear-facing car seat for at least 1/2 of our 7 hour drive home. She was so engaged with them that Brad actually said, “Well I know what we need to bring on the plane to Kuwait.” (If you’re travelling through Germany in August and see a woman with popsicle mould parts clumsily falling out of her purse, that’ll be me.)
When we got home and I started thinking about fun play opportunities for the week, I thought it would be fun to try to set up a popsicle-themed pretend play station. Of course, the first thing that came to mind was making the pretend pops out of ice, but I wanted something a little different. Enter gelatine. With a fun texture that can be jiggled, squished, and crumbled, I knew it would be a hit. 
This morning while we were preparing breakfast together, Miss G immediately noticed the rainbow coloured popsicles in the fridge and asked if they were for playing with. Let me tell you, this girl doesn’t miss a thing. She patiently waited until after our morning outing, lunchtime, and her nap, and I had this little set up ready ready for her when she woke up.
She was delighted to see it and immediately asked, “Are these just for playing, Mama? Or are they for eating?” With the fact that they were for playing with cleared up, she began naming the flavours – my favourite of which was tomato soup (the red one). Then she began doling out the treats in bowls with spoons, as she often likes her popsicles.
Next up, all of the popsicles went back into their moulds and got put into her pretend freezer. Then she took them out, one by one (with the help of a spoon and some serious shaking) as though she were filling customer orders.
For the customers who preferred to eat their frozen treats from a bowl rather than a stick, she happily crumbled the popsicles up. As you do.
There was lots of play with the popsicles in their smushed up state…
Then she moved onto making rainbow pops. Because I mean, who wants only one flavour when you can have several, right?
And then there was soup. Oh, was there ever. Soup stirred so enthusiastically that bits flew out of the bowl and landed in various spots around our living room. 
I’d say pretend popsicles were a hit, wouldn’t you? A colourful, messy, joyful hit.
This afternoon the sun was out and I decided to set up something really fun for Grae to explore and experiment with in the backyard.
The set up was pretty simple… Several differently shaped jars and medicine bottles filled with coloured vinegar (we used gel food colouring), a couple of small jars of baking soda, a couple of spoons, and a few empty mixing containers all on a tray. Oh, and some safety goggles. Because in Gracen’s world, science equals goggles. ☺
After helping her with her goggles, Grae set off to work.
As I usually do with this kind of activity, I didn’t give her any instructions. I simply said, “Do you want to play?”
The answer was an excited ‘yes’, and after a few questions about whether or not she could dump/mix/pour things (of course the answer to all was yes), she got started.
While she’s seen the reaction baking soda and vinegar have while 
And she loved it. Mixing a little bit of this with a little bit of that in order to cause colour changes and fizzy foam eruptions was right up her alley.
My little scientist made reaction after reaction, delighting each time she caused foam to spew out of the top of her jar.
One thing that was interesting is how the colour of the vinegar seemed to change with the addition of baking soda. In the case of the orange and the pink, the colours seemed to explode with brightness as the reactions occurred.
With almost all of her baking soda resources used up and her largest jar of vinegar left, we fetched just a little more baking soda from in the house.
It started off slowly, but the reaction did not disappoint. After scrounging leftover baking soda from wherever she could, she managed to create enough fizzing foam to have it flow generously out of the top of the jar. Success!
After 
Gracen poured water, added greens, and gently stirred hot soup. She scooped soil, packed it down, and added pebble sprinkles to dirt cupcakes. She tended to gooey mud pancakes, flipping them every now and again.
And lucky for me, I was the chosen taste tester.
I thought of putting this little station together for Gracen to explore months and months ago, but only got to it today. Perhaps today just felt like a face painting sort of day? I don’t know…
Either way, I set out her 
And when she did, was she ever excited! She didn’t quite know what it was all about, but she was excited none the less. I stood back and watched her take off her tights. Then she turned to me and asked, “Mama helps Grae Grae paint her toes?” Hah!
Once I explained that they were face painting crayons, she was even more pleased. And off she went, decorating her face.
She went through several changes during the process… First, she announced that she was a raccoon, and after adding a few more lines here and there, she decided that she was a kitty cat.
Here she is with her first finished look. ☺
When it was time to remove it, she tried using the damp cloth I’d provided, but it was quite tricky. Face paint is stubborn, but I knew just what would do the trick…. One of our very favourite body/household/cooking products – organic coconut oil! She dipped her fingers into it, started rubbing it on her face, and the paint literally melted off. Afterwards she was able to use her cloth and wipe her face clean – easily!
Miss G decorated herself for a while longer, then let me have the final turn… The natural choice? Papa eyebrows, of course! ☺ I don’t know who found it more hysterical – her or me.
Do you ever set up an activity that you think will be a total hit and it just kind of flops? Or if it doesn’t flop, it just doesn’t take off the way you thought it would? That was the case with this sensory tray.
After a 
I kept it very simple and filled a tray with raspberry-scented shaving foam, sprinkled glitter on top of it, and set out a warm bucket of water with a hand towel.
Grae dove in.
She definitely had fun mixing up the different colours of glitter and squishing the foam between her fingers…
And she even thought it was funny that it stuck to her hands at first, but after a while, the fact that she couldn’t properly clean the foam off of her hands and arms, even with the bucket of water and towel, started to bother her.
She decided to gather some sandbox tools and played for a while longer, but the activity never really took off the way I thought it would. In the end, there was a giant tray of semi-played with foam just left there and she was done.
If anything, this was a great way to get messy. ☺
What I like so much about this sort of slime (besides how cool it is to play with), is that despite the fact that it looks like it can get pretty messy, it’s very easy to tidy. Because it acts more like a solid when removed from little people, dishes, and blankets, it just kind of clumps up and comes away clean. Plus, it doesn’t stain skin and it washes off of clothes and blankets without any effort. Messy play being easy to tidy? A definite win in my books.
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