Being cooped up inside like we've been this winter due to the extreme cold is no fun for anyone. Especially for little kiddos who are used to (and need to be) more active. Kids tend to bottle up their energy if they aren't able to let it out, and for the sake of your house, you sometimes just can't let them run and jump all over the place.
But there is hope! You can engage their senses in other ways, and sensory play is just the thing to do it. Engaging your child's senses in meaningful play ideas can turn a stressful day of constant warnings to slow down and stop jumping onto the baby from the couch into a calm(er) day of learning.
Pinterest has TONS of great ideas for sensory play, and many of them are affordable and have multiple benefits for your child. I keep a sensory table avaliable for my children at home, at all times. It is nothing elaborate- just an under the bed storage bin that I picked up at Target and we set on a child height table (or the floor sometimes).
Some sensory items that I keep in our table at home for the kids are:
--Wacky Mac plus cups and chenille stems (aka, pipe cleaners). I love this pasta as a sensory tool. There are several different pasta shapes, and they come in different colors in one bag. The kiddos love to scoop and pour the noodles, there are several that allow for being strung onto the chenille stems, they are great for sorting by type or color... The possibilities are only limited by my children's imagination.
--Rainbow rice plus cups and measuring spoons. There are many ways to turn plain white rice into rainbow rice. The one I used was to put the rice (about 2-3 cups) into a large Ziploc bag, and added about 1T of rubbing alcohol and several drops of food coloring. I mushed the bag around to spread the color, then poured the rice onto cookie sheets overnight to dry. It turns out pretty light unless you use a lot of color, but when they are mixed together, it makes a really cool effect. The kids love to scoop and pour, and this is a great medium to use with measuring spoons and cups, to see how teaspoons go into table spoons, and quarter cups into a whole cup.
--Cloud dough plus cups and small sandbox molds. To make cloud dough, you mix flour and baby oil. It has an 8:1 ratio, so mixing 8 cups of flour with 1 cup of oil gives you the perfect consistency dough to mold and experience, and it is easy to halve or quarter if you don't need quite so much. (TinkerLab has a great blog article about Cloud Dough!) We loved molding and squishing the dough!
Beans plus cups and egg cartons. We have TONS of dried beans, and they are a great medium for sensory play. They are (usually) just big enough to be picked up with a pincer grip, which is super important for pre-writing skills, and are also great for sorting and counting. We save egg cartons to put in with the beans, and write numbers in the bottom of the cups for counting.
I also love sensory bags and bottles for those times that a mess and/or small items in little hands are not appropriate. Ate the Center, I have several empty plastic bottles that I have re-used to create visual sensory experiences for the infants in my care. Baby oil plus ribbon and sequins in one. Blue hair gel and enough water to make air bubbles in it when you shake it. Aquarium rocks and water. Fine sand and seashells plus water (the beach!). We also have a couple taped-shut, gallon size Ziploc bags with hair gel and glitter that the babes can squish and mash (with supervision, of course!). We have also pulled the seeds out of a pumpkin and put them in a bag with a little water for the babies to chase around with their fingers.
Sensory play is not limited to hands-in bins; it can also be scarves, texture books, felt boards, play mats, textured balls, and other cloth items that provide a different or interesting texture for little fingers to explore. It can be music and movement- feeling and learning how they can move their bodies and experience music. It can be tasting and learning about new foods (at an appropriate age)- ie. fruits and vegetables that may not be as common (avacado or starfruit, anyone?) Exposing children to new flavors can help set them up for life-long, healthy eating habits. Children put toys in their mouths- because they can get a better feel for it by touching and tasting it than they could by just touching it alone.
The point is, exploring with their senses is one of the best ways for little learners to experience... Learning! Children who are encouraged to explore and learn in a safe environment become more adept at learning than their counterparts who are not afforded the opportunity to check out their world. Learning is a skill, and children need to practice. They need to learn that they are getting all kinds of information when they explore with sensory play. Because, truly, it is not really play. What we see as play is really the child's work. The exploration, the learning that comes from utilizing their senses, the learning that they can learn from using their senses- this is all an essential building block to the future learning that children will do.
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