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18 Mo. STEM

Learning In A Winter WonderlandLearning In A Winter Wonderland

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Keep the learning going all summer long with our free activities at Camp Learning Resources!

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Fun Fall Sensory Water Table for Siblings

I love it when the leaves start to change color, and it creates so many fun Fall-themed learning opportunities for my three- and seven-year-old. For this activity, we enjoyed a leaf hunt outside, looking for all sorts of shapes and colors of leaves. I then added a few simple tools and ingredients to turn our new leaf collection into an exciting sensory water table. 

What you'll need for the sensory bin:

  • Jumbo Tweezers
  • Fine Motor Tool Set
  • Sensory table or containers 
  • Scissors 
  • Bowls 
  • Magnifying glass 
  • Water (we also added a few drops of food coloring)
  • Leaves from a nature walk 

Some of my all-time favorite activities start with a nature walk; there’s just something so special about the learning and creativity that comes from the great outdoors! Before we left the playground, we worked together to gather up a fun selection of leaves that had fallen from the trees. As we did so, we spoke about the different colors and shapes we could see. I put my seven-year-old in charge of counting how many leaves we had in our collection.

How to set up the table

Once we got home, the kids refueled with a snack while I quickly set up the water table. I used our IKEA FLISAT Children’s Table with two small TROFAST bins and one large one. I added water and five drops of green food coloring to the large bin placed the leaves in one of the small bins, and then the fine motor and cutting tools in the other small bin. It was terrific how inviting this setup looked, considering its simplicity!

Let's Play

I always try to keep sensory bin setups as open-ended as possible to build my children’s confidence to explore independently. Straight away, my seven-year-old started experimenting to see whether the leaves would float or sink in the water. Together they spent ages using scissors to cut the leaves into different shapes. We had a star, a man, a dinosaur, and even a boat floating on the water. The fine motor skills at work were awesome. This is where having an older sibling helps because it encourages creativity and imagination for the little one!

Both my kids enjoyed exploring the different fine motor tools. Big bro liked using the Squeezy Tweezers™ and Handy Scooper™ to rescue the leaves from the water and then drop them back in. Meanwhile, baby sis was all about making the leaf confetti and sprinkling it into her bowls of green leaf soup!

Adding a magnifying glass to any sensory setup can stimulate more in-depth conversations and observations. The kids were fascinated by the veins running through the leaves and experimented with ripping the leaves to explore them further.

This was such a fun sensory and fine motor setup, and best of all, it appealed to both ages. It pays off to ensure a range of open-ended tools and containers with a sensory table because you never quite know how kids will choose to play with it.

Writer's bio

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind.

Fun Fall Sensory Water Table for Siblings

I love it when the leaves start to change color, and it creates so many fun Fall-themed learning opportunities for my three- and seven-year-old. For this activity, we enjoyed a leaf hunt outside, looking for all sorts of shapes and colors of leaves. I then added a few simple tools and ingredients to turn our new leaf collection into an exciting sensory water table. 

What you'll need for the sensory bin:

  • Jumbo Tweezers
  • Fine Motor Tool Set
  • Sensory table or containers 
  • Scissors 
  • Bowls 
  • Magnifying glass 
  • Water (we also added a few drops of food coloring)
  • Leaves from a nature walk 

Some of my all-time favorite activities start with a nature walk; there’s just something so special about the learning and creativity that comes from the great outdoors! Before we left the playground, we worked together to gather up a fun selection of leaves that had fallen from the trees. As we did so, we spoke about the different colors and shapes we could see. I put my seven-year-old in charge of counting how many leaves we had in our collection.

How to set up the table

Once we got home, the kids refueled with a snack while I quickly set up the water table. I used our IKEA FLISAT Children’s Table with two small TROFAST bins and one large one. I added water and five drops of green food coloring to the large bin placed the leaves in one of the small bins, and then the fine motor and cutting tools in the other small bin. It was terrific how inviting this setup looked, considering its simplicity!

Let's Play

I always try to keep sensory bin setups as open-ended as possible to build my children’s confidence to explore independently. Straight away, my seven-year-old started experimenting to see whether the leaves would float or sink in the water. Together they spent ages using scissors to cut the leaves into different shapes. We had a star, a man, a dinosaur, and even a boat floating on the water. The fine motor skills at work were awesome. This is where having an older sibling helps because it encourages creativity and imagination for the little one!

Both my kids enjoyed exploring the different fine motor tools. Big bro liked using the Squeezy Tweezers™ and Handy Scooper™ to rescue the leaves from the water and then drop them back in. Meanwhile, baby sis was all about making the leaf confetti and sprinkling it into her bowls of green leaf soup!

Adding a magnifying glass to any sensory setup can stimulate more in-depth conversations and observations. The kids were fascinated by the veins running through the leaves and experimented with ripping the leaves to explore them further.

This was such a fun sensory and fine motor setup, and best of all, it appealed to both ages. It pays off to ensure a range of open-ended tools and containers with a sensory table because you never quite know how kids will choose to play with it.

Writer's bio

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind.

 READ MORE

Let’s Get Wet! Why Water Play is Good and 10 Fun Water Activity Ideas

 

The more varied your child’s play experiences are, the better off they’ll be! Enter, water, the most common substance found on Earth. Essential to all forms of life, it’s also an essential component of your toddler and preschooler’s playtime. Lifting, pouring, carrying, and splashing water build gross motor skills, while scooping and squeezing build fine motor skills. Water play also supports hand-eye coordination and balance, and, when done with friends, encourages cooperation, sharing, and turn taking. Water play with toys can build vocabulary, measurement, early science skills, and so more. Plus, water play activities can be adjusted to be either calming or energizing. Are you in? Make a splash, with one of our favorite wet n’ wild activities today:

 

1.       Fill ‘Er Up! Set various plastic containers in a large plastic bin or tray. Include smaller cups, larger pitchers, and everything in between. Fill a few of the containers with water (food coloring makes water play extra fun) and watch as your child transfers water from one container to another. Turkey basters, eye droppers, wooden spoons, and swizzle sticks make for a fun challenge.

 

2.       Sort It Out! Fill a large plastic bin with water and add a set of colorful items – math counters, letter tiles, pom poms, etc. Provide a scooper, spoon,  tongs, and bowls and see if your little one can find and sort the items into the bowls by color.

 

3.       Soup’s Up! Walk the backyard with your child, looking for items to add to their “soup”. Choose leaves, rocks, flower petals, dirt… then drop the ingredients into a large plastic bowl and stir! See if your kiddo can scoop their soup into smaller plastic bowls.

 

4.       Sink or Float? Fill your bin with water and collect a variety of items from around the house or the backyard. Ask your child to hypothesize, or make a guess, about which items will sink and which will float, then test their theories! Things to try: rocks, sheets of paper, paperclips, toy cars, plastic blocks…

 

5.       Coffee Shop! Fill your bin with water and provide plastic cups, saucers, spoons, and scoopers. Place your order and watch as your child fills the cup with pebble or dirt “grounds”, stirs them, and pours you a cuppa.

 

6.       Go Fish! Fill your tub with floating foam fish and see if your fisherman can “catch” them with a small net or spoon.

 

7.       Car Wash! Muck up your kiddo’s trike or play car, then fill a bucket with sudsy water, large sponges, and rags, and watch as they spiff up their rides!

 

8.       Bowl O Bubbles! Pour a bit of dish washing liquid into your bin, add water and a few drops of food coloring (different colors, please!), and let your little one loose with differently sized bubble wands.

 

9.       Sponge Toss! Assign each child a sponge color, then drop them into a bowl of water and show them how to squeeze them dry. Practice dropping and squeezing, then add another (large) bin or bowl full of water and see if your child can toss their sponge in.

 

10.   Color Lab! Use food coloring to color one cup each of red, yellow, and blue water. Show your colorful kiddo how to mix red and blue to make purple, red and yellow to make orange, green and blue to make light blue, green and red to make yellow. Then let them experiment, pouring and mixing their own custom colors.

 

Fun for all ages, there’s no end to the ways kids can play with water. So set up your bins and scoopers today and go get wet!

 

Let’s Get Wet! Why Water Play is Good and 10 Fun Water Activity Ideas

 

The more varied your child’s play experiences are, the better off they’ll be! Enter, water, the most common substance found on Earth. Essential to all forms of life, it’s also an essential component of your toddler and preschooler’s playtime. Lifting, pouring, carrying, and splashing water build gross motor skills, while scooping and squeezing build fine motor skills. Water play also supports hand-eye coordination and balance, and, when done with friends, encourages cooperation, sharing, and turn taking. Water play with toys can build vocabulary, measurement, early science skills, and so more. Plus, water play activities can be adjusted to be either calming or energizing. Are you in? Make a splash, with one of our favorite wet n’ wild activities today:

 

1.       Fill ‘Er Up! Set various plastic containers in a large plastic bin or tray. Include smaller cups, larger pitchers, and everything in between. Fill a few of the containers with water (food coloring makes water play extra fun) and watch as your child transfers water from one container to another. Turkey basters, eye droppers, wooden spoons, and swizzle sticks make for a fun challenge.

 

2.       Sort It Out! Fill a large plastic bin with water and add a set of colorful items – math counters, letter tiles, pom poms, etc. Provide a scooper, spoon,  tongs, and bowls and see if your little one can find and sort the items into the bowls by color.

 

3.       Soup’s Up! Walk the backyard with your child, looking for items to add to their “soup”. Choose leaves, rocks, flower petals, dirt… then drop the ingredients into a large plastic bowl and stir! See if your kiddo can scoop their soup into smaller plastic bowls.

 

4.       Sink or Float? Fill your bin with water and collect a variety of items from around the house or the backyard. Ask your child to hypothesize, or make a guess, about which items will sink and which will float, then test their theories! Things to try: rocks, sheets of paper, paperclips, toy cars, plastic blocks…

 

5.       Coffee Shop! Fill your bin with water and provide plastic cups, saucers, spoons, and scoopers. Place your order and watch as your child fills the cup with pebble or dirt “grounds”, stirs them, and pours you a cuppa.

 

6.       Go Fish! Fill your tub with floating foam fish and see if your fisherman can “catch” them with a small net or spoon.

 

7.       Car Wash! Muck up your kiddo’s trike or play car, then fill a bucket with sudsy water, large sponges, and rags, and watch as they spiff up their rides!

 

8.       Bowl O Bubbles! Pour a bit of dish washing liquid into your bin, add water and a few drops of food coloring (different colors, please!), and let your little one loose with differently sized bubble wands.

 

9.       Sponge Toss! Assign each child a sponge color, then drop them into a bowl of water and show them how to squeeze them dry. Practice dropping and squeezing, then add another (large) bin or bowl full of water and see if your child can toss their sponge in.

 

10.   Color Lab! Use food coloring to color one cup each of red, yellow, and blue water. Show your colorful kiddo how to mix red and blue to make purple, red and yellow to make orange, green and blue to make light blue, green and red to make yellow. Then let them experiment, pouring and mixing their own custom colors.

 

Fun for all ages, there’s no end to the ways kids can play with water. So set up your bins and scoopers today and go get wet!

 

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Sensory Dinosaur Terrarium

This simple dinosaur terrarium is a skill & sensory-filled activity that will be fun for kiddos of all abilities!

Materials:

  • Jumbo Dinosaurs
  • Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set
  • Container – We used a “coconut” planter for an added touch of sensory and balancing (it is a wobbly container, so the weight of the items inside needed to be distributed evenly- tricky!)
  • Rocks – we found the bags of rocks at the Dollar Tree, and they were the perfect size for the helping hands tools!
  • Marble Pebbles (flat pebbles are great for in-hand finger manipulation)
  • Succulents (This fun pretend “use again and again” succulents are from the Dollar Tree)

Step 1:

Using the helping hands toolset items, fill the terrarium container with rocks (dirt, sand, etc.). The rocks were perfect for the tongs pictured (great for practicing scissor skills, coordination, as well as strengthening)

Step 2:

Add marble pebbles (we chose blue and white ones to give it a “water” effect)

Step 3:

Plant succulents and create a dino-scape. Using tweezers to carefully place the succulents around the terrarium works on motor planning, along with more finger and hand strengthening – all of which will develop those underlying skills need for future handwriting!

Step 4:

Add dino’s!

Variation: We also used all of the same materials for an indoor water play version using an oven tray.

The materials selected for this activity help to develop lots of intrinsic hand muscles and joints, along with visual and motor coordination!  For younger kiddos, you can always remove the use of the tools and have them use their fingers and hands – for the older kiddos, you can always add more challenges by having them use the tools and more detailed coordination to create their terrarium.  This is a fun activity that can grow with the kiddo as their skills progress!

Sensory Dinosaur Terrarium

This simple dinosaur terrarium is a skill & sensory-filled activity that will be fun for kiddos of all abilities!

Materials:

  • Jumbo Dinosaurs
  • Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set
  • Container – We used a “coconut” planter for an added touch of sensory and balancing (it is a wobbly container, so the weight of the items inside needed to be distributed evenly- tricky!)
  • Rocks – we found the bags of rocks at the Dollar Tree, and they were the perfect size for the helping hands tools!
  • Marble Pebbles (flat pebbles are great for in-hand finger manipulation)
  • Succulents (This fun pretend “use again and again” succulents are from the Dollar Tree)

Step 1:

Using the helping hands toolset items, fill the terrarium container with rocks (dirt, sand, etc.). The rocks were perfect for the tongs pictured (great for practicing scissor skills, coordination, as well as strengthening)

Step 2:

Add marble pebbles (we chose blue and white ones to give it a “water” effect)

Step 3:

Plant succulents and create a dino-scape. Using tweezers to carefully place the succulents around the terrarium works on motor planning, along with more finger and hand strengthening – all of which will develop those underlying skills need for future handwriting!

Step 4:

Add dino’s!

Variation: We also used all of the same materials for an indoor water play version using an oven tray.

The materials selected for this activity help to develop lots of intrinsic hand muscles and joints, along with visual and motor coordination!  For younger kiddos, you can always remove the use of the tools and have them use their fingers and hands – for the older kiddos, you can always add more challenges by having them use the tools and more detailed coordination to create their terrarium.  This is a fun activity that can grow with the kiddo as their skills progress!

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Healthy New Year, Happy New Year!
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Sensational, Surprise, Sensory Bins
Sensory play is such a huge part of play-based learning for preschoolers and for Building Someone Amazing! This idea of smaller-sized individual sensory bins is also a great option for preschool-at-home families.
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