We have been spending a lot of time lately working on sensory play with our kids. They love to get messy and a lot of the activities we have been doing are brand new to our one year old and our three year old hasn’t done them in a while because of how difficult it was to keep her brother from destroying everything.  We tend to do at least one a day depending on what the kids want to do.  I try and let them decide which activity to do unless I have something in mind or I don’t want to do laundry. Since the weather has finally started to warm up in the Pacific Northwest we have been doing a lot of sensory play outside with found materials.

Having kids work with their hands using a variety of materials is a great way to have them learn without it seeming like forced work.  So many parents I talk to are amazed at how much we do with our kids but honestly it is super easy and it doesn’t cost much to set things up. Many of the set ups I made when our three year old was one we are still using and will continue to use for many years and the others (most of them) are ones where my kids ask to play with something and I throw a bunch of things in a bin and they play.  My kids also find sensory play items in their own as well and unless there is a safety issue I usually let them play with it.  We have been on a strict budget ever since I can remember so I have not spent a lot of money.  They key is to not get caught up in all of the fancy sensory bins you see on Pinterest with very specific items included in them and to make sure and buy materials that can be used for many different activities.  Every once in a while throw in something new or “new” to them (as in mommy hid it for several months) and it will keep them interested.

Our focus lately has been water play. In the winter we have dumped bath toys in the kitchen sink and I have had the kids wash them for me but I only like to use that activity for special treats (like when the kids have cabin fever) since it can get out of hand and cause a huge mess. The weather has finally gotten warm enough so that the kids don’t freeze when they get wet outside so we have moved to the front yard. We used to live in a townhouse with no yard but a decent deck that was shaded in the heat of the summer so in the afternoons I would get our middle daughter a big bowl of water and sit out there with her while she poured water out of her tea pot over and over again.  She absolutely loved it.  Writing this reminds me I have to find that tea pot so that the kids can play with it this summer.

Now that we have two kids I have had to get a little more creative.  I usually give them our white dish pans that we never use for dishes.  I bought them several years ago at Target and we use them almost exclusively for sensory play.   The dish pans, a set of large sterilite containers similar to these and this set of sensory tools are by far the best sensory play items I have bought so far.  The dish pans are the perfect size for keeping projects small but deep enough so that material spills way less often then something shallow like a cookie pan and the sterilite containers work well for when you want a little more room, especially if the kids want to sit in your material which is good for them as well.

Our one year old’s first time using the dish pans outside. He was content with two red cups leftover from planting seedlings.  Both had holes in them but all he cared about was practicing scooping and pouring water into the bin.

I had to bring out both dish pans when both kids were outside last week since they each wanted to play in a different way.  They used the red cups, beach toys and watering cans to scoop and pour.

Today I turned on the hose to water some plants I had moved and our son ran into the garage, dumped out the first white bin he could find and brought it to me to fill.  It was super sweet. I guess he loves playing with water outside!  The kids were a little bored with the same toys so I added some bubbles to the pan.  Oh man.  Our one year old loves bubbles.  He was so excited I had to break out the large sterilite container I have for larger sensory play and fill that with bubbles.  It also kept the water loss down since the waterwheel drained back into the container instead of on the grass.  They played with bubbles for over an hour until both of them were cold and ready for dinner.

Here is some of the sensory play we did outside the last couple of weeks:

We have done some indoor play as well. My kids have been obsessed with their legos and our creative muscles have been working hard making stores, schools, houses, and many other creations.

Our son has just started to really play with them so it has been a lesson in sharing and taking turns for everyone.

There are many many other ways you can do sensory play.  In the past we have used water beads, kinetic sand, gak, pinto beans, flax seed and many more ideas.

What ways do you use sensory play in your home?

A few weeks ago we had our three year old help us pick out flowers to give to our friends when we ate dinner at their house.  Being three, she was instantly lured to the artificially colored daisies in rainbow hues.  She absolutely loved them and my husband being his ever informative self told her that they did not come that way naturally.  Of course this new information sparked her ever present curiosity and we found ourselves promising her that we would make them ourselves some day soon.  The day finally came last week and our daughter had a ton of fun making them.

We bought our flowers during our weekly Costco trip and used some of our larger mason jars for the food coloring.  We just happened to be very low on yellow so we made red, orange, green, blue, purple and one with half the flower in red and the other half in blue (to teach the color wheel).  I bought our food coloring at our local grocery store some time ago but you can also find it here although the price on Amazon seems absurdly high.  I am pretty sure I paid under $2.00 for mine so check your local grocery store.  There is no need for high quality food coloring here, but it would be another experiment to see if some of the gel food coloring would bring out more vibrant colors.

We filled our jars part way with water and cut off a few inches from the bottom of the flower stems.  You should make sure they are a good height for your jars so they don’t tip over.  We divided up three for each single color and one for the split color.

Added food coloring.  My husband just squirted a bunch in there.

Here are what the colors looked like in the jars. The one second from the left is orange even though it looks pink. You can test your colors by dipping a paper towel in it to see what it will look like.

To make our dual color flower we carefully sliced the stem of one flower with a knife.

Next we pulled it apart a little. Not too much though or you will break off a piece.  We then cut and pulled it until it would be steady in our glasses. We ran out of mason jars so we just used regular drinking glasses.

Place the split stems with one in each glass. Make sure they won’t pull each other over.

Once our flowers were in place we let them marinate.

Here is what they looked like after about two hours. You can just barely see some of the tint on some of them. A couple of the red flowers looked pinkish.

Another view of the blue.  There was just a little on the tips of the petals.

Here is what our flowers look like after a few days.  Our flowers were well watered prior to bringing them home so it might be another experiment to leave some out of water for a period of time and see if they soak up the dyed water more quickly.

If I had been on the ball this would have been a great way to introduce a scientific notebook to our daughter.  Now some of you may be saying she is too young for that but it is important to introduce these concepts early. STEM is the focus of many schools’ curriculum and just exposing your kids to the terminology from a young age will give them a leg up when they start school.  At the age of three I would write the steps to the scientific method with very simple explanations for each one and have her draw a picture of the experiment.  I would also have her “write” some notes on it which she may or may not fully understand but again, it is important to expose them early. Even if your kids do not understand the concepts now, they will be setting the foundation for when they learn them in the future.  This is very important.  Too many times I hear parents telling me “well my child was asking about such and such but they are too young for that”.  Take advantage of your child’s natural curiosity! If they are constantly being told they can’t do things eventually they will internalize it and it will be much harder when they are older to get them to try new things.

Some science questions to ask you kid while you are doing this experiment:

What do yo think will happen to the flowers when they are in the water?

How does the water travel up the flower’s stems?

How long do you think it will take for the dye to transfer to the petals?

What will the red/blue split flower look like when it is done?

What colors will form when you combine red and blue? Blue and yellow? Any other color combination?

Why does the color move to the flowers?

Do all flowers change color when you put them in dye?

What colors are in the rainbow?

Some books to read about flowers and colors:

We had a lot of fun making our rainbow daisies! I am excited for our future science experiments!

Have you seen these cool candy toys made in Japan? They have all kids of fun food items to make!

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For Christmas I bought this  Takoyaki candy from Japan for my teenager. Takoyaki is one of her favorite foods and she found it online and wanted to try it.  It was ok and I wish I had gotten pictures of it but she had fun making it with the three year old and we had a good laugh out of it.  The oldest is heading off to college next year and to make her last year memorable I have been randomly ordering funny things off of Amazon to see how she reacts.  A couple of months ago I found this Japanese Candy “In A Toilet”  Drink Toy on Amazon after scouring the site for the perfect gag gift.  I ordered it hoping it would come before Easter and it happened to come last week on a particularly difficult day so I had her open it right away to cheer her up.  

We put it together on the kids’ art table which has been heavily used so please ignore the paint and or sticker mess in any of the pictures.  The three year old wanted to help so she was in charge of stickers and taste testing.  We did not look up where to place the stickers since the three year old was impatient and put them all over the toilet piece.  The girls had fun putting it together.

Despite the instructions being in Japanese there were excellent pictures and it was very easy to put together.

I love the details put into this candy, they even included a little piece of bathroom floor for the toilet to rest on.

Once the toilet was put together you pour the powder into the toilet, add water to the back of the toilet and enjoy! The mixture forms bubbles in the bowl of the toilet which you drink out of with a straw.

I tried the red flavor (strawberry) and it tasted like sour strawberries, similar to the filling in Zots, remember those?  Our three year old absolutely loved doing this activity with us and drank most of both flavors on her own.  My teenager and I got a good laugh out of it and now I am searching for the next thing to try.

Maybe I will get the Kracie Popin Cookin 9 Item Bundle with Sushi, Hamburger, Bento, Takoyaki, Cake Shop and More and dole them out slowly when we need a good laugh.  Seriously, I highly recommend them for a fun family activity.  Trying to figure out how to put the kits together builds teamwork skills, allows little ones to practice fine motor skills and gets your kids to try something new and exciting to eat.

Happy “cooking”!