tactile

Spring Sensory Water Bin Play Date Activity

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We are so excited to share our first Spring activity of the year!  This winter has been a loooong one! (and with it still being frigidly cold out side with inches of snow on the ground…the actual first signs of Spring seem a long way off!)
This Spring Sensory Water Bin is part of the All Things Kids bloggers Spring Sensory Play Date Activities series during the month of March.  We put this water bin together to celebrate Spring and friends.  What better way to kick off warmth and sunshine with a playdate with friends.  When you get a few toddler or preschool-aged friends together, what better way to play than with sensory play activities? 

This Spring themed activity is perfect for a play date.

Spring Sensory Water Bin

{Note: This post contains affiliate links.  In other words, this blog will receive monetary compensation when any purchases are made through the links in this post.  Our opinions and ideas are in no way affected.  You can read our full disclosure policy here.  As always, we thank you for your support and community here at Sugar Aunts.}

RELATED READ: Simple Spring Sensory
Play date activity with a sensory and fine motor Spring theme.
We are big fans of water bins for play and this one was no different!  We started with a bin of water scented with Pomegranate Body Scrub.  Just a little bit of the bath salts were all we needed to scent the water with a nice Spring fresh scent.  Any scented bath salts (or body wash/bubble bath) would work.  We just wanted to get a fresh scent and the rose colored water. 
You’ll want to watch smaller children who are playing with this water bin very closely.  You don’t want any tastes of the scented water, and especially if salts are being used!  Use your best judgment and if there is a concern, eliminate the scented portion of this activity.  Regular water would work fin, or even a few drops of food coloring, if you want to achieve the colored part of the water bin.
Tulip and butterfly water bin for a Spring play date.
I added a few foam butterfly crafting sheets
and foam tulip crafting sheets to the water bin and a handful of foam Spring stickers.  When these foam sheets and stickers get wet, they can stick to the foam and plastic plates very easily.  They can be removed and placed again and again without difficulty.
This is a perfect activity for a Spring play date.

Placing these foam stickers on the large foam sheets is a great way to practice tip to tip grasp and fine motor skills.  baby Girl had a hard time understanding that the sticker’s backs would not peel off once they were wet, but she got the hang of just placing the foam shapes in different places once I showed her.

Kids love to explore senses in water play. This Spring themed sesnory activity is great for a play date.

Scooping up the floating shapes from the scented water was so much fun and a great way to practice visual scanning and eye-hand coordination, too.  We didn’t add any scoops to this activity, but a few kitchen utensils like large spoons or an ice cream scoop would be a fun way to further extend this sensory water bin.

Toddlers will love this Spring-themed water bin.

Baby Girl just enjoyed getting her hands in the water and grabbing up the shapes.  Sensory play at it’s finest!

Sensory and fine motor play perfect for Spring!
We used our plastic plates
to sort and play with the foam stickers.  The wet stickers stuck nicely to the plastic plates, too.
Scented water adds a sensory component to a Spring water bin.
What is water play without a little scooping and transferring?  A couple of small bowls and a turkey baster were perfect for more fine motor play in our Spring water bin. 
Using the turkey baster to transfer scented water not only stimulates the senses, but works on gross hand grasp.  What a great fine motor strengthening tool the turkey baster is! 
Hopefully this is inspiration for your next play date.  If you’re worried about the mess, you could set this up in a small baby pool or in a bath tub.  If you’re in warmer climates than we are, take it outside.  I know we will be re-doing this activity once the weather turns and we can get outside!
Let us know if you do this Spring Sensory Water bin or something like it.  We would love to hear about it or see pictures.  Just stop by our Facebook page and share your fun with us!
Be sure to catch all of the other Spring Sensory Play Date Activities being posted this week over at our bloggy friend’s sites:
Crayon Box Chronicles
Do you have a Spring Sensory activity to share?  Link it up all month long below.  we will be pinning to the All Things Kids Pinterest board and creating a round-up of fun Spring Sensory Play Date Activities at the end of the month.  We would love to feature YOU!

Valentine’s Day Garland Craft Noodle Painting

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Valentine’s Day activities are all around!  If you are looking for a few Valentine’s Day activities to add to your OT line-up, I’ve got you covered with activities that pack a developmental punch. Have you been cutting any hearts yet?  Covered a box in paper for a Valentine’s exchange?  Bought cards for the kids to give out at school?  We’ve done a few activities…there was this Valentine’s Day Painting and even a Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin that you may have seen. 
 
Painting noodles is such a fun creative painting activity that you can use to make bracelets and necklaces while building fine motor skills.
 
This Noodle Painting activity started out as a fine motor activity for Baby Girl and turned into a pretty Valentine’s Day craft and decoration. 

 

 
Fine Motor Craft for kids with painted noodles with a Valentine's Day theme!

 

 

 
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Fine Motor Activity for Toddlers

 
Painting a variety of noodle types is a great fine motor and sensory experience for Toddlers.

Baby Girl (age 2) LOVES to paint.  She will ask to paint almost every day.  One day I decided to bring out something besides paper for her to cover with paint.  I pulled out a small handful of different dried pastas and put them into a divided dish.  In the center was our spill roof paint cup

with red paint. 

 
Baby Girl got busy painting.  She explored each noodle and had fun painting!  Manipulating the little pastas was a great fine motor dexterity task…and very sensory too, as she covered her fingers with paint. 
 
We let the painted pasta dry and ended up using it another day to make our Valentine’s day craft.

Valentine’s Day Noodle Garland craft

 
Squeezing glue is a great hand strengthening activity for Toddlers.
 
I cut some hearts from red construction paper and gave Baby Girl glue.  She squeezed the glue all over the hearts…however she liked!
 
Squeezing glue is a good way to encourage hand strengthening in children.  Squeezing the glue bottle requires a gross grasp on the bottle.  A gross grasp is using the whole hand in a squeezing manner and really strengthens the muscles of the hand.
 
 
She put the painted noodles in the glue with a tip to tip (pincer grasp).  Picking up small objects with just the tips of the fingers requires precision and dexterity. 

 

Create a Valentine's Day heart garland for decoration and fine motor/sensory experience.

The hearts dried and we strung them along a strand of yarn in our dining room.  They make a pretty Valentine’s Day decoration!

 

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Soda Dough Snowmen Sensory Bin

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Did you see our Soda Dough Snowmen post from last week?  We’ve been using our snowmen in all kinds of pretend play with loads of imagination!  They came in handy one day for this Soda Dough Snowmen Sensory Bin. This is a Winter sensory bin that supports fine motor skills and tactile sensory input.

Snowman Sensory Bin

We love this snowman sensory bin because you can involve kids in several aspects of setting up and playing with the sensory bin:

  • Making the fake snow
  • Molding the fake snow into snowmen
  • Manipulating and exploring items in the snowman sensory bin
Sensory Bin with Soda Dough Snowmen
We loved creating this snowman sensory bin on a cold winter day.
Items that you can add to a snowman sensory bin include:
  • Container
  • Cotton balls
  • Tinsel
  • Cotton batting
  • Gems or other small objects and items to manipulate and explore
Child manipulating loose parts in a sensory bin with Soda Dough Snowmen

Loose Parts in Sensory Bins

We used cotton batting left, cotton balls, our soda dough snowmen, bits of tinsel, and some glass gems.  A few clothes pins were added for fine motor exploring, too.  This was a fun little world for Baby Girl with loose parts.  All those little pieces are fun to explore and examine. 

Language is developed.  As your child plays, ask her questions.  “What color is that?” “What can we do with this?” What is this called?”  Their imagination will blossom and learning is encouraged.  You can add colors, scents, textures to sensory bins with little loose parts pieces.

Hand Strengthening with Clothes Pins

Pinching items with clothes pins is a great way to strengthen the intrinsic muscles of the hands.  Strength in the arches of the hands is needed for endurance with coloring and handwriting.  Starting in the toddler years with fine motor strengthening activities is a fun way to play and work on pre-handwriting skills.   Not to mention, it’s just fun!

Looking for more sensory bin ideas?  Check out our Sensory Play page for lots of fun activities!

Christmas Sensory Fine Motor Noodle Play

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This sensory play activity with noodles was a hit with Baby Girl (age 2)!  She loved the fine motor aspect and the sensory play.  She is a fun-loving two year old and this Christmas play activity was just right for her. 
 


 


Christmas Sensory Play with Noodles

 
Candy Cane Sensory and Fine Motor Christmas Play with noodles. By Sugar Aunts

Noodle Fine Motor and Sensory Play

 
{Note: This post contains affiliate links.  In other words, this blog will receive monetary compensation when any purchases are made through the links in this post.  Our opinions and ideas are in no way affected.  As always, we thank you for your support and community here at Sugar Aunts.}
 
We had a handful of noodles that were left over from a meal and were not going to be eaten.  These were the perfect thing for a little sensory and fine motor play…candy cane style!  I grabbed half of the noodles and tossed them with red food coloring in a baggie.  A few drops of peppermint extract in the baggie and another good shake, and we were ready to play.  I added a couple of drops of extract to the un-dyed noodles too…these sensory noodles smelled so good!
 

We had the red noodles mixed in with the un-dyed noodles in a bin and a cookie sheet right beside it.  Baby Girl spent the longest time just pulling noodles out and laying them on the cookie sheet.  This was such a fun sensory play experience for her. 

 
I extended the play a little bit longer (and added a fine motor component) by pulling out a recycled grated cheese container.  I showed her how to thread the noodles into the holes of the lid.  This was great fine motor work.  She loved threading the red and white noodles through the holes.  We worked a little on the color red, too. 
 
 

Spaghetti Wreath Christmas Ornament for Kids to Make

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  We’ve been making a ton of Christmas crafts this month.  This Spaghetti Wreath Ornament made from dyed pasta was SO much fun!  One of the cousins were at our house one day for a little crafting time and all of the kids really got into the process of making our ornaments.

 Kid Made Ornaments: Spaghetti Christmas Wreath

My kids (aged 6, 4, and 2) and my little niece and nephew (age 2) really got into each step of this kid-made ornament.  They got to explore a little sensory fun with dyed and cooked pasta AND hone their fine motor skills while placing the pasta in the wreath shape and adding pom pom berries.
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Materials needed for these ornaments:
  1. Start by adding green food coloring to your cooked pasta.  I put the pasta into a container with a lid so the kids could shake, shake, shake that pasta. The gross motor work was a great way to get out a little excess winter energy (perfect!) and at the same time, coat the spaghetti with a nice green color. 
  2. Squirt in a lot of glue (depending on how much pasta you’ve got going on there…)
  3. and give that container another good shake.  You want all of the pasta coated with glue.

4. Place a sheet of wax paper on the table and you are ready to get started on forming the wreaths!  This job was a little better for Big Sister (age 6), and we used a spoon to help form the wreath shapes.  {Note:  If you use your fingers, you WILL end up with Grinch-like green fingertips!}

5. Place the red pom poms around the wreaths.  This part was great for fine motor dexterity.  Picking up those little poms and placing them carefully on the wreaths used a nice tip to tip grasp and was pretty fun, too!
We finished with another generous squirt of glue around the wreaths to make sure they stuck together as they dried.
These little guys took two whole days to dry!  This is definitely a craft that will require advance planning, but it is so worth the wait!  Once dried and on the tree, these pasta wreaths look pretty cool!

Let us know if you try this craft at home, and how it goes for you!  We love to hear from you.

Autumn Baby Sensory Table

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Try this toddler activity or baby activity is a tactile sensory play using a train table surface, perfect for encouraging gross motor skills, fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, and more!

Babies and toddlers of all abilities love this Fall occupational therapy activity.

autumn sensory activities for babies

We had a couple of nieces and nephews over this weekend for a cousin sleep over.  While the big kids were off playing, the littlest and I had some fun with some autumn sensory play.

sensory table for toddlers

I pulled out a bunch of fabrics scraps and felt leaves and scattered them all over our train table.  This was the perfect height for this little guy who is just standing and beginning to cruise along furniture.

He loved scattering the leaves all over the table, picking them up one by one, and dropping them on the floor.  Then picking them up  and putting them on the table again!  The bright colors really grabbed his attention. 

baby activities autumn

Why is this such a great activity for babies and young toddlers?  The varied textures of different fabrics are neat for them to explore with their hands (just watch those mouths so felt leaves don’t end up in there!)  

They are able to see what happens when the drop the leaves and can do it over and over again from the low surface.  Babies love the drop and pick up game!  This was a great fine motor activity and eye hand coordination task for this little guy.  He could work on grabbing at the thin fabric of the leaves and picking up the leaf after it was on the ground.  Plus, it was something new and fun!

Visual Contrast Sensory Letter Writing

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We practiced writing letters in coffee grounds one morning after Mom cleaned out a cupboard.  Why did I buy Instant Decaf? YUCK! So, before we tossed them, we had to play with them.  Of course 😉

Visual Contrast Letter Writing

I poured the coffee grounds onto a white cutting board for maximum contrast and had Big Sister practice some lower case letters.  She loved this!  The black on white let the letters really show.  She felt so special doing this activity because she could play with coffee!

Sensory Letter Writing

We practiced the letters that are easy to reverse (b, d, p, g, d) and a few words that she knows how to spell.  She stood at the kitchen counter for a while making letters. 

Little Guy had to get in on the action and make some shapes, too. 

A great multi-sensory input way to practice letters!

Sensory Soup with Fine Motor Sorting

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This was a child-led activity after …someone… emptied a bunch of our sensory bottles into the little play sink!   I had super glued the lids shut, but a bigger cousin had a great idea to cut the bottles open.  Super good problem solving, right?  We had all kinds of things in this little sensory sink…pieces of straws, bits of yarn, glitter, foam snowflake stickers, crafting poms…It was very sensory!!

So, what does a mom do…don’t stress the mess, roll with it 🙂
Sensory Sink

Fine Motor Sensory Play

I added a few utensils from my kitchen to scoop, transfer, and stir…and a couple of containers from our recycle bin.  Baby Girl had a blast with this while the big kids were at school. 

Using the Turkey baster to squeeze is such a great hand strengthening activity!  Transferring the objects with a spoon really works on her visual motor skills.  Scooping up crafting poms from that sensory water is a great task for an almost 2 year-old.

Sensory Sorting

Baby Girl sorted the objects into sections of a muffin container, with a little verbal cueing from Mom.   This is a fun way to incorporate sorting into  sensory play…and she loved pretending to cook in her little kitchen!
 It was a pretty fun way to recycle our sensory bottles!

Sensory Handwriting Practice Letter Formation

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Practicing handwriting doesn’t have to involve paper!   This sensory handwriting practice activity works on letter formation and line awareness with proper tool grasp and typical writing motor movements (unlike many sensory writing activities that use a writing tray or over-sized letters–while those sensory writing activities DO add to the tactile sense, they prevent the child from becoming accustomed to holding the pencil and the small motor advancements made by a writing utensil.  The child IS working on letter formation but they are not doing so in a typical motor pattern, and this can actually be quite confusing for some children.) 


This creative handwriting task, however DOES use a writing utensil-one that is appropriately sized to what the child typically grasps when writing on paper–and adds a bit of proprioceptive input.  We do love creative handwriting activities around here, and this one is one of our all time favorites!


Practicing Handwriting with shaving cream

Practice Handwriting with Sensory Input

 
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We practiced writing letters one day last week and this was a super fun way to do it!  I filled a couple of bags with shaving cream (not much, just a little worked great).  I used a permanent black marker to write a few letters that sometimes confuse Big Sister…common reversals: ‘b, d, p, q, and g’. 


Letter Formation with Sensory

 We also practiced ‘a’ and ‘c’ to begin.  When you make a “little curve” to make a ‘c’, you can continue with simple verbal cues to make the ‘c’ into other letters like a ‘d’…”little curve, big line down” makes a ‘d’.

sensory handwriting with shaving cream
Big Sister used a dry erase board marker to trace the lower case letters.  She could wipe the dry erase board marks off over and over again.  You can use a smaller sized dry erase marker or a fine tip marker to make this more similar to the  motor movements needed for writing with a pencil. 
We also practiced writing our address on the sensory bags.  This activity was a fun way to practice letter formation with verbal and visual cues with an added sensory input.  Plus, Big Sister just really loves writing with the dry erase board makers 🙂
This would be a fun way to practice shapes, numbers, and even beginning pencil stokes for the younger kids.
Looking for more creative handwriting activities?  My friend Erica has some great ideas on this post.  You’ll love to dive into some of our all-time favorite creative handwriting ideas:
http://www.sugaraunts.com/2015/10/visual-tracking-tips-and-tools-for.html