2 - 4 Years STEM

In the early childhood or special education classroom, sensory bins are a staple! They allow your students to explore tons of different textures and materials and can help develop a healthy tactile system. These types of activities are especially great for children with autism, as sensory practice helps calm and them and improve focus and concentration.

My all-time favorite base for sensory bins is rice.

Dying rice different colors is VERY easy to do, and you only need materials that you most likely already have in your classroom.

DIY Sensory Rice Recipe

In the past, a lot of people used vinegar and food coloring to dye rice to for sensory bins. Using paint is quick, easy, and won’t leave your hands blue. Plus, if kept dry, this rice will last forever. This would even be a fun activity to do WITH your students. They will be amazed by the process!

Step 1: Add a few cups of rice to the plastic bag, and squirt the paint in

Step 2: Shake and squish the rice in the bag until it’s completely covered in the paint. Don’t be afraid to add more if you want more vibrant color!

Step 3: Spread the rice out on a tray or a pan in an even layer to dry. I like to put mine on wax paper, so there is less clean up. It dries pretty quick!

Step 4: Once dry, use your hands to break apart the rice until its loose.

For this activity, I made green, blue, and lime green rice for fun, spring colors. Once all the colors were dry, I mixed them up together in our bin.

Add some scoopers and cups, and your students will have a blast! 

Dino-Sorters Sensory Bin

When I put together sensory bins for the classroom, I love throwing counters or other manipulatives to add a skill component. For fine motor development, I offer plastic tongs and tweezers for students to use to pick out the objects from the rice, which helps build up those finger muscles for pre-writing. 

For this bin, I used the Counting Dino-Sorters Math Activity Set from Learning Resources. I love how this set works on a number of skills in one activity and can be easily differentiated based each student’s ability level. I put the dinosaurs in the rice, and set the dinosaur eggs to the side.

Students can sort the dinosaurs by color, count the dinosaurs needed to fill each egg, match the dinosaur egg tops and bottoms by color, or put the eggs in order from 1-10, or in descending order from 10 to 1. To challenge your students, you could always have them compare the amounts in the eggs or complete simple addition or subtraction story problems (i.e. I have 3 dinosaurs in this egg, if one of my dinosaurs jumps back into the water, how many dinosaurs are left in the egg?). The possibilities are endless!

With this activity, students are working on:

-fine motor skills-color identification

-number identification

-one to one correspondence

-counting

-early addition/subtraction 

After students complete the activity, allow them time to play! Lots of learning happens when students are engrossed in imaginary play. Not only does play benefit students’ social development, but it also enhances language and communication development as well.

Save it for later!

Sensory Dinosaur Terrarium

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 your 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!

We’ve heard it for years – too much screen time is bad for kids’ mental and physical health. But recent research finds little evidence actually correlating screen time to negative physical, social, or emotional results. So, who should we listen to? And how much is too much?

The good news is that newer research actually highlights many benefits of screen time. Research conducted by experimental psychologist Andrew Przybylski at the Oxford Internet Institute found that kids who spent a few hours on their devices each day exhibited better well-being than those who spent none at all. Another researcher, UC Irvine psychologist Candice Odgers, agrees, pointing out that, for many kids, time spent online is positive. Says Odgers, "… if you go in and talk to kids, a lot of them are turning to the internet for social support, information about symptoms, and reported feeling better about themselves when they were online than when they were off. They actually were going online to feel better."

But it feels like there should be limits, right? We’ve all seen kids who seem physically incapable of pulling themselves away from their tablets and exhibit frustration, short-temperedness, or rude behavior after spending time on their digital devices. And we all believe in balance for our kids, right? Exploring all that childhood has to offer, on and off screen?

The most recent guidelines published by the American Academy of Pediatrics agrees that “digital media has both positive and negative effects on healthy development.” And offers the following screen time limits, by age:

• 0-18 Months – No screen time other than video chatting.

• 18-24 Months – Limit screen time to high quality programming enjoyed together – not alone.

• 2-5 Years – 1 Hour a day of high-quality programming.

• 6 Years and Up – Consistent limits on time and type of media viewed.

For those of us with older kids, tweens, and teens, these guidelines may seem a little impractical. But don’t panic! The experts seem to agree that different solutions work for different families and that the answer to that burning question, “How much screen time is too much?” is actually pretty personal.

Below are our best tips and tricks for managing screen time, but remember, the bottom line seems to be “Mother (or Father, or Grandma, or Care Giver) knows best.”

1.It’s All About Balance

Screen time should not interfere with homework time, physical exercise, chores, or family time. Prioritize what’s important and let screen time be just one of many experiences your child has each day.

2. Check in Often

You know your kids best. Monitor their behavior during and after screen time – are they irritable? Tired? If so, cutting back might be beneficial. If they’re able to easily move on to another activity, a little more screen time might not hurt them.

3. Model Positive Limits

This one’s tough, but there’s something to the ol’ show, don’t tell. Let your kids see you participating in unplugged activities during your down time. Put that phone down and pick up a book, call a friend, work on aproject, or play a game.

4. Watch the Snacking

It’s easy to succumb to hand-to-mouth eating when entranced by a video or game. Help your kids learn healthy eating habits and portion control by making screen time snack free.

5. Turn It Off Before Bedtime

According to the National Sleep Foundation, “Using TVs, tablets, smartphones, laptops, or other electronic devices before bed delays your body’s internal clock (a.k.a., your circadian rhythm), suppresses the release of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, and makes it more difficult to fall asleep.” Cut your kids off from screen time at least an hour before bedtime – try reading or listening to quiet music instead.

So all in all, enjoy your screen time, but be responsible about it and set a good example for your little learner! Save it for later!

We are walking in a winter wonderland with this snowy STEM craft!

Cutting paper snowflakes is a time-honored tradition and can make for some seriously beautiful holiday decorations! Glue them together to make a wreath, string them to make a garland, add a hook and you’ve got an instant ornament. Plus, all that snipping stimulates STEM learning.

So let’s get started! Follow the step-by-step instructions below to create beautiful paper art AND spend some quality time with your crafty kiddos.

First, gather your supplies. This should be easy – you really only need paper and scissors. You can make snowflakes out of any kind of paper, really, but it has to be square and thin enough to cut when folded several times. Printer paper is probably easiest for beginners. 

Before you get too serious with the instructions, let your child experiment a bit on their own. Fold a sheet of paper in half and have them cut a triangle shape out of the folded edge. It’s a triangle now, but what happens when you open the paper? Diamond!

Fold a square once, then again, and cut another triangle on the fold. Open the paper to reveal not one, but two diamond shapes (or a great Halloween mask!).

Older kids might even be able to begin making some mathematical predictions. If folding the paper twice and cutting one triangle results in two diamonds, what will happen if they fold the paper three times? If your kiddo guessed four diamonds, you’ve got a total STEM smarty on your hands (hint, the number has to do with the number of panels you’re cutting).

Okay, back to the instructions. To make a basic snowflake, here’s what you’re going to do:

Cut your piece of paper into a square large enough to fold several times. (Hint – bring the bottom corner of the paper across the sheet until the sides meet perfectly. Cut the paper above the folded edge off.)

Fold the triangle in half, corner to corner, to make a smaller triangle. Younger kids may want to stop folding here and start snipping, being sure to leave some areas of the folded edges in tact to keep all of the layers from falling apart. This is also the way to create a square or diamond-shaped snowflake. To create a more complex, round snowflake, follow the remaining steps.

Fold the edges of the triangle inward, roughly in thirds, as shown below.

Cut the bottom off this tall triangle to leave a flat edge.

Start snipping! Use any shapes you like – triangles, circles, squares… Encourage your kids to experiment with shapes – they’ll be surprised at the different patterns different shapes make when the snowflake is open. Again, just remind them to leave some of the folded edges intact.

Carefully unfold the paper to reveal your one-of-a-kind snowflake pattern! Share with your kids that each real snowflake is also completely unique. Water droplets freeze onto dust particles creating ice crystals that vary depending on the temperature and humidity. No two are ever the same!

Making snowflakes is endless fun. Once your kids have the basics down, take it a step further and watercolor your paper in winter colors or make STEM snowflakes out of wrapping paper!

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.

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.

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).

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

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

.

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.

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.

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!