Spooky Sensory Tray!

Patria Lincoln Posted On Sep 20, 2021 | Halloween

October is here, and it’s the perfect time to plan some spooky, playful learning activities for your little ones. What better way than combining Halloween-themed fine motor practice with some sensory and sorting skills? I’ve got the perfect activity for your home or classroom!

Fine motor activities such as this one are essential for young children, as they help develop handwriting skills and their ability to perform critical daily tasks. When you introduce your child to play-based learning activities such as this one, they are playfully getting that practice.

Sorting and classifying is another important skill for little ones to learn. This activity will help toddlers and preschoolers with this life skill by encouraging them to sort each Halloween object into its corresponding bucket.

Fill a large tray with small, Halloween-themed objects. Halloween mini erasers, plastic spiders, and googley eyes work perfectly. Any small orange, black, or green objects you can find will also fit well with this activity.

What you need:

Tray
Fine Motor Tool Set
Mini Buckets or Cups
Mini Erasers
Pom Poms
Plastic Spiders
Googley Eyes

1. Fill a tray with small, Halloween-themed objects.

2. Set out mini buckets and fine motor tools

3. Encourage your little ones to pick up each small object with a tweezer or other fine motor tool and transfer one at a time into the buckets.

4. Sort the pieces by object type

Your little ones will love this challenging, spooky fine motor activity!

Save it for later!

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Bright Science! DIY Layers of the Sun Craft

Is it getting hot in here? Since those Firelytes love the heat, we thought we’d go an adventure with them to the hottest spot in our galaxy: the SUN!

The Sun is a spot of constant fascination for scientists and space-lovers alike. On August 12, 2018, NASA launched the historic Park Solar Probe. Its mission is to revolutionize our understanding of the Sun. Parker will be able to travel through the Sun’s atmosphere, closer to it than any spacecraft before!

The hope is that Parker will be able to provide humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star.Before we get into what Parker is looking for, let’s have the Firelytes describe to us all the parts of the sun. The sun accounts for 99.86% of our solar system, and is made up of the gases hydrogen and helium. It is so big that one million Earths could fit inside it. Wow! It is made up of several layers that help us understand its makeup, so let’s take a look. Take it away, Firelytes!

Layers of the Sun

Core

Erupto says: The Sun’s core is about 200,000 miles across and takes up about one quarter of the Sun’s size. The temperature inside is about 15 million degrees Celsius. The core is tightly packed, which creates an environment for nuclear reactions to occur.

Radiative Zone

Hearther says: The radiative zone is just outside the core and generates energy by nuclear fusion. Both the core and radiative zone spin differently than the rest of the sun. This energy produced is in the form of photons, or particles of light or radiation.

Convective Zone

Chark Says: A thermometer would read 15 million degrees Celsius in the convective zone of the Sun. Energy created from the radiative zone is transported through here by radiation and conduction.

Photosphere

Blazer says: The photosphere is the visible surface of the sun. It is what we see on Earth. Light is radiated from the photosphere’s surface.

Chromosphere

Magmunch says: Temperatures at the Sun’s chromosphere are about 4,000 degrees Celsius. This is the layer that emits the sun’s reddish color only visible during eclipses.

Corona

Twotorch says: The Sun is surrounded by a “jacket of gases” called an atmosphere. The outermost later is corona. It is usually not visible because of the Sun’s bright light, but can be seen by a total solar eclipse.

Now back to Parker, the NASA’s space probe currently making its way around the Sun. For the first time, Parker will be able to gather data from the corona, hoping to deepen scientists’ understanding of the origin and evolution of solar wind. The neatest part? Parker will be able to give information to NASA’s ability to forecast changes in Earth’s space environment that will affect life and technology here on our planet. Sun NASA

Parker will hurtle around the Sun at 430,00 mph.

How fast is that? Well, fast enough to get from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. in one second!

And what about the heat? Parker’s outer solar shield will be up against temperatures of about 2,500 degree Fahrenheit, but inside the probe it will stay a comfortable room temperature. The Sun is the only star we can study up close. As the source of light and heat for the Earth, the more scientists study it, the more we can understand how life on Earth developed. Solar wind, or the flow of gases from the Sun, can cause disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field. All good stuff to find out – Parker is going to help scientists do it.

Stay tuned on Parker’s latest findings at nasa.gov. And thank you, Firelytes, for our Sun fun facts!

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Beaker Creatures DIY Halloween Slime!

October marks the beginning of our favorite time of year! We pull out all of our Halloween decorations and transform our entire house for a month before we transition to Fall and finally holiday décor. Along with the festive setting in our home, I also begin themed activities to excite our girls and encourage them to get into the holiday spirit. One of their favorite Halloween projects is creating various types of spook-tacular slime! This is an incredibly low prep activity that results in hours of fun sensory play.

The three base ingredients are water, glue, and liquid starch.

Liquid starch can be found in the laundry section of your local store and only costs a couple of dollars. As for the glue, you can use either white or clear glue. White will result in opaque slime, while the clear will be more see through. In addition to the base ingredients, choose any food coloring, glitter or add ins that match the theme! My girls chose orange and purple food coloring, various glitter, googly eyes and our beloved Beaker Creatures.

Beaker Creature Slime

First, empty two, 5 ounce bottles of glue into a bowl. Once they are empty, fill the bottles with water and pour that into the bowl as well. Stir the mixture until it is smooth.

DIY Slime

At this point, add in your food coloring. This is the only step you can do this at, so make sure you add enough! As you will see below, our first batch looked very orange initially, but I should have added more food coloring. By the end, it was a faint orange color (but the girls didn’t care).

DIY Slime

Pour in any mix-ins – my oldest chose googly eyes and green + purple glitter. Stir until the items are mostly incorporated.

DIY Slime

Next, add in 8 ounces of liquid starch and begin to stir. The mixture will begin to turn into a hard blob

. DIY Slime

At this point you can help your child and begin to knead the slime with your hands. If it’s pretty sticky, add in a little more starch. Knead some more and continue adding starch until the slime can be handled easily. It will still have some stick to it, but you should be able to pull it off the table in one piece. Depending on the brand of glue you use, the amount of starch will vary. I’ve found that 8 ounces is always the best amount to start with.

DIY Slime Beaker Creatures

We added in our Beaker Creatures and the fun began! My youngest daughter also created a batch of purple slime from white glue. That batch made it’s way into the party as well.

DIY Slime

My daughters will play with slime for hours! We store our slime for a few days of play in a Ziploc bag. If it’s a little sticky, just add some liquid starch again. We hope you enjoy this spook-tacular sensory activity as much as we do!

Save it for later!

Beaker Slime DIY