Invitation to Play - Valentine's Sensory Tray

Normally, we have a sensory tote out for the season or a topic we've been exploring however, this month I did something different - a Valentine's Sensory Tray.  Sassy Sis is really into scooping, sorting, matching, patterning, counting, transferring - all of the great skills a sensory tote helps to develop/practice.

Like many of my ideas I was inspired by Happy Hooligans' post because her ideas  are just perfect for little ones and super easy for me to put together!

Here is what I came up with:

Nothing is expensive and most of it we had at home:

mini heart containers

mini heart erasers

heart ice cube tray

empty baby food jar

assorted red/pink/white containers

Valentine lid container

various scoops, tongs, spoons.

metal mailbox

felt hearts

pink and red heart table scatter

I can tell you all of this was bought at Dollar Tree, Joanne's, dollar section of Target, and Ikea ( ice cube tray) and most was probably bought last year when Valentine's day items were 50% off!

Sassy Sis was immediately drawn to the tray and spent the better part of the morning playing with it, even inciting the Owl to come and have a look as well.  

Putting together a sensory tote or tray doesn't need to take a lot of time nor does it need to be expensive.  

We'll play with this for the next couple of weeks and then we all of the components will go in a large ziploc bag for easy storage until next February! 

Fall Themed Sensory Fun

I'm a huge advocate of sensory play.  I try to always have numerous sensory activities available for my two to enjoy.  A fabulous explanation on the benefits of sensory play, with ideas, can be found here.   The two activities I posted about today are simple to create - most use items around the house or which can be found at your local dollar/discount store.  They provide hours of creative play for your little ones as well.  Sounds like a win:win to me! 

Tomorrow we'll have two new sensory activities that are related to the season of fall.  First is our sensory tote. The filler for this tote is popcorn kernels and inside are all things fall: pumpkins, acorns, leaves, scarecrows. A simple walk through the Dollar Tree, Michaels, or JoAnns will provide you with numerous low cost items to make your own tote.

Totes are easy to put together ,but I know I can always use some inspiration.  Here are some ideas for an autumn sensory tote:

http://www.pre-schoolplay.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=autumn#!http://pre-schoolplay.blogspot.com/2011/09/autumn-sensory-play.html

http://pinkandgreenmama.blogspot.com/2011/10/preschool-at-home-fall-sensory-

box.html

http://countingcoconuts.blogspot.com/2010/09/september-sensory-tub-playdough-fall.html

http://handmadebeginnings.blogspot.com/2010/09/sensory-bin-autumn_24.html

We also will have a new play dough set up.  For the past year I've been making my own play-dough.  I love to add scent and color to it and let me tell you this Pumpkin Pie play-dough smell delcious.  The recipe is easy to follow- in fact the Owl and I made it together today.  I wanted it to come out orange, but I'm pretty sure our pumpkin pie spice took over with the coloring.  Either way my two are going to love it! 

I've included some fall cookie cutters, some rolling pins and 4 plastic pumpkin cups of embellishments: foam leaves, mini pumpkins, fall table scatter, and fall themed confetti.  I can't wait to see their creations!

Farm Sensory Tote

For the past two weeks we've been studying the letter F. 

 ( A post is coming soon with all of our F activities).  Of course, we needed to have a themed sensory tote to go with our letter study.  Even though most of our letter F study centered around Fire/fireman - I knew that a farm sensory tote would be very welcomed and let's not overlook the fact that it was easy for me to put together!!

Here it us our $3 Farm Sensory Tote.....

Everything we needed for this tote we had on hand, other then the filler.  I purchased two large bags of popcorn kernels and one bag of yellow lentils for a whooping $3.

Another view....

Tote Items:

Mini John Deere Barn

John Deere Tractors

Hale Bales

Wooden Fence

Wooden and Plastic Farm Animals

Plastic Fence

Crops - twisted pieces of green pipe cleaner pushed into brown play-doh.

Feed Buckets - mini play-doh container filled with green raffia

Water Troughs - lids of mini play-doh containers with a little bit of water.