Preschool at Home Weeks 9 & 10

To be honest, we've been taking it easy in the preschool department lately. David was traveling last week; Caroline and I were away with him this week. Preparing for those trips didn't leave much time for our usual activities. While I had hoped to do some fun stuff, it is summer and we are going to have to be flexible. While David was out of town, we did at least shop for and make our first sensory bin.

If you're not familiar with sensory bins, they're just what they sound like - a tub filled with items that appeal to a child's senses. In our case, Riley could hear the rice crunch as she moved items around; she could feel the textures of the rice, paper, and ribbon as she manipulated the items; and she could see the bright colors of the flowers and butterflies I placed in the bin. They also provide children with opportunities to use their fine motor skills, transfer items from one container to another, and sort items by color or category. For more information on their purpose, see this post on sensory bins at A Purpose Driven Home

In our Summery Sensory Bin, we included the following:

• Rice dyed green (I put a couple cups of rice in a ziplock bag, added two squirts of hand sanitizer, and food coloring until I got the color I wanted)
• Brown basket filler paper
• Red and white polka dotted ribbon
• Silk flowers and butterflies
• Pieces of yarn
• Rubber bugs
• Leaves
• Fake grass

I put all these items in a dollar store tub and let Riley go to town. I provided tweezers, spoons, and containers for her to use as she was playing. Riley's favorite part of the whole experience was playing with the green rice as if it were sand. She also liked to pretend she was eating it... a good reminder that you can't let kids play with this unattended.

As I'm sure you can imagine, we had quite a bit of "deen rice" on our rug. Believe it or not, the noise of the rice being swept up by the vacuum cleaner did not appeal to Riley's senses. I'm still finding random pieces of green rice under toys and behind baskets. I'm thankful Caroline's not crawling around yet or I would have needed to be much more careful not to miss any pieces when we were cleaning up. 

 

    Saturday Show and Tell at Cheerios & LattesSaturday Show and Share at I Can Teach My ChildMaking the World Cuter Monday at Make the World Cuter