Jake: We present to you Harlyn the Elephant!!! This is my 9 month old son Harlyn. This is his first Halloween celebration. My wife loves Elephants and when we started thinking...
Need a great quiet time toddler activity? You have to try this sticker line-up! Toddlers love following the path while working on their fine motor skills.
Sensory hacks for small spaces - great ideas for doing occupational therapy at home with your kids who have autism and/or sensory processing disorder
Baby Bubble Wrap Art is a fantastic sensory activity suitable for babies, toddlers and preschoolers. They will adore exploring the texture and colours, as their little hands squish the bubbles.
My girls love sand play , and the colored variety is always the most fun.
Oral motor activities for kids who chew on everything. Great suggestions for kids with autism and/or sensory processing issues. Includes a free printable and oral motor chewy toy suggestions.
Make a color mixing sensory bottle for sensory play, learning about colors, or just for fun! These are perfect for all ages.
A fun collection of the best Simple Baby Play Ideas.Babies can explore colour, shape, texture, and sound with these easy play ideas for your baby.
All year we’ve been having fun with colors, but these past few weeks we had a fun pom pom center! This included a pompom drop and a place to sort the pompoms by color. I came across some great ideas for pompom drops on Pinterest, but this was just a quick throw-together. I would love to attach these to wood instead of just paper! Anyway, I began with cardboard tubes (I’m such a hoarder) and painted them 6 different colors using 2-3 coats of regular tempera paint. Then I attached them with painter’s tape to a large piece of paper and taped it all up to the wall. Add a bin full of colored pompoms of different sizes, and we had some happy toddlers! They have gotten some practice pushing pompoms through small areas like this, but they also got to experiment with different sized pompoms and different sized tubes. Some of the larger pompoms got stuck in the smaller tubes, so we learned which sizes could fit down which tubes. (And we also had fun stopping up the tubes and making piles of pompoms on top of them). I drew their attention to the colors and showed them how the tubes matched the pompoms in color – that they could drop a blue pompom down the blue tube. A lot of them persisted in this activity, and others just dropped the pompoms down whichever tube they liked, which was fine. I narrated their actions to reinforce the color learning: “Susie dropped an orange pompom down the green tube – look! It came out the bottom and into the bin!” As fun as the pompom drop was, they also had a blast just playing with the pompoms. They are such a fun sensory experience – just try squishing a big fat one between your fingers! You can see here scoops of pompoms being tossed over the shoulder – it was glorious fun! They also got to compare the texture of the smooth and soft pompoms to the sparkly bristly ones. This little one took a handful to carry around with her for the morning. I also had tongs and scoops available to exercise finger muscles in picking up the pompoms. AND… we had a muffin tin and ice cube tray with some colored paper taped to the compartments. Sometimes we put them in the matching colors, and sometimes we didn’t. In any case, we are practicing one-to-one correspondence and using our fine motor skills in grasping the pompoms… …and learning to share and work together! As you can imagine, cardboard tubes taped to paper with painter’s tape did not stay on the wall for long. But we found other uses for them. This little blue pompom got hidden under the yellow tube – what a fun game! Like any sensory play, the room got a little messy, as in pompoms were underfoot everywhere. But this was a very popular center with a fun way to learn about and practice sorting colors. Of course, use discretion with toddlers and small objects like pompoms. These 23-29 month olds have gotten months of practice with small objects under my heavy supervision, and they have past the mouthing stage. But of course, I still watched them to make sure. UPDATE on 3-20-13: I am overwhelmed at the number of views this post has had in such a short time! First blogging success! :) Here's something that may make this activity a little more durable: when my coworker used this idea, she stapled her cardboard tubes to a poster board! Thanks for stopping by!
Explore liquid density, chemical reactions, with this easy to set up Earth Day theme lava lamp experiment for kids.
Are you following us on Pinterest? Thanks to a recent heat wave in Melbourne, we've been having lots of fun playing with ice. The other day I thought I'd combine our love of painting by making some frozen paint cubes for the kids to paint with. I wasn't actually sure how well it'd all turn out, but the results speak for themselves. I've since tested it with a variety of different paints and found that whilst the results vary, they all provide a fun, sensory and unique painting experience. Ages: 2+ (See the end of the post for handy hints. This is a great multi-age activity) Materials: Paint (our favourite is this easy wash finger paint as it's nice and thick! Use any poster paints, tempera paint or acrylic paint you have) Ice cube tray. (these are super cheap so it's not a stretch to have one dedicated to crafts. However, using a non-toxic paint and then popping it through the dishwasher when you're done would make the tray fine to continue using for ice) Craft sticks/popsicle sticks cut in half Squeeze your paint into your ice cube tray. As the finger-paint we were using is nice and thick, it allowed me to make a multi-colour cube as well. (This isn't going to work well with thin paints that will run together when poured in the same cube.) Thanks to the thickness of the paint, the craft sticks sat up nice and straight in the centre of the cubes. As there was such a small amount of paint to be frozen, these only took a couple of hours to set completely. To be safe, I'd pop them in the freezer overnight so that your activity is ready to go the next day. They popped out of the ice-cube tray the same as you'd pop out an ice cube. It wasn't an effort to get them out cleanly. It was nice and easy. We used the ice cube tray to hold the paint cubes in. They slipped in and out with no problem. I presented them along with some painting paper (it's a little thicker than regular paper) to my 2 year old and 5 year old and left the rest up to them. The little sticks were perfect for little hands Maddie loved swirling them round and round and watching the colour come off as the cube slowly melted. The toddler quickly discovered what could happen as they melt and by using some force. It was a wonderfully sensory experience. Crushing the frozen paint and swirling it around the page was a lot of fun and it was great for cooling down as well! Worried that her little brother was on a "crushing mission," Maddie quickly collected some of the remaining whole paint-cubes on the side of her paper. And of course, the finger painting looked like so much fun that she had to have a turn of it herself. Some of the works of art by my little artists using frozen paint cubes The multi-coloured cube was my favourite. When we were doing the activity I shared this pic on my Instagram account. Thanks to @fifomama for suggesting they be called "Paintsicles" ;) Just in case our favourite thick finger-paint was the only one to produce these great results, I thought I'd better give it a bit of a test with some other varieties of paint I had so that you wouldn't be disappointed. Here I tested some easy wash, acrylic and poster paints of different varieties to see if it made much of a difference. The acrylic paint (good varieties) was pretty thick so I tested some on it's own and some mixed with water. None of these paints were thick enough to make the craft-sticks stand up in the centre. I wasn't fussed about it but if you want them standing up straight, you'll have to pop some tape across the top of the ice-cube trays to hold the sticks in place. You can see that the water based paints (like Tempera, poster paints, easy wash paints) leave a nice colour that is a bit thinner than the acrylic paint. You'll get a much thicker, smoother and creamier result with the bold pigments of acrylic but I would recommend watering it down first as it actually spread better (and went much further) than just straight acrylic paint. (The light blue in the centre top is straight acrylic and below it is the same paint watered down about half/half.. I think you could get away with 1 part acrylic and 3 parts water though.) I think that regardless of the type of paint, they still look great and are lots of fun! Handy Tips: - Simplify this activity by freezing your paint in plastic cups to provide larger "paintsicles". With more paint around the sticks, the one colour should last them a lot longer and will be harder to get off the stick. - Extend this activity by challenging children to make new colours from the paint cubes they have. This could be by layering the colours over one another or by crushing some of the icy-paint together. Test for different results. - If you are using a paint that does not wash off hands/clothes easily (such as acrylic paint) you will want to encourage use of the sticks. You get a great result with acrylic but for younger children, I'd definitely be recommending an easy wash paint (like our awesome Micador ones) so that you don't have to worry about it and so that the kids get an even greater sensory experience by being allowed to touch the icy paint. - Mix it up. Try placing some paintsicles on a piece of paper in the sun. What results will you get? You could also pop them into a box with some paper and tip the box slightly to get the frozen paint cubes to slip and slide around as they melt. (I did have thoughts about pushing them around paper with a hair-dryer but as we were trying to beat the heat, this didn't seem like the best idea for the time, haha) - Talk with your child about what they are doing. This will help them understand the physical and mental processes they are going through as well as giving them the vocabulary to describe it. Working side by side with children while they are being focused is also a good time to talk with them about sensitive issues and their feelings. - Use new language and descriptive words like, "frozen," "swirl," "melt," "spread," "slide" etc. This will help with their language development. - Supervise. Neither of my children tried to lick the paint cubes but there'd be some kids who would (especially if you're freezing them in actual popsicle moulds). Paintsicles are not food and are not intended to be eaten. We always use a non-toxic paint but still discourage any eating/tasting of it. Want more ideas for Painting with kids? Click the picture to see the post in full. Happy creating, Debs :) Look where else we are. Are you following along? :)
Last week we made a simple discovery bottle with our kids! This simple diy toy helps toddlers develop fine motor skills through play.
12 sensory room tips for your child with autism. Help your child calm down and focus. An adapted sensory room can help your child...
This bubble wrap activity is a mess-free painting idea that supports development of fine motor skills, sensory processing, and more.
A Unicorn Sensory Jar Your Kids Will Want to Make Right Now. This simple kids activity uses water, a mason jar, paint, glitter and cotton balls.
These cutting practice activities help kids to develop their scissor skills. They're great for kids in Pre-K, Preschool and Kindergarten. Tips for Helping
These sensory balls were fun to make, plus they were educational! This project can go in a number of directions with different color polymer beads, balloon
Hand and eye coordination is definitely something all of my kids could use some practice with. None of us are particularly coordinated and unfortunately
Kids learn better and faster when all senses are engaged. Sensory play has many benefits, and not all of it is messy! Here are a ton of sensory activities for 1 year olds that will keep you little ones busy. (Bonus, older kids/sibling love these too!) Over 65 Sensory
Today I've gathered several of the cutest and easiest Easter crafts for kids of all ages. From PEEPS houses to bunny slime, these spring crafts are a must!
Parenting a child with autism isn't easy. I know, my son has autism spectrum disorder. These autism parenting tips are must-haves for autism
Pretty, sparkly, shiny Fairies in a Bottle. This is a fun craft to make that will delight the young and the young-at-heart.
These Indoor Activities For Toddlers are perfect for winter or a rainy spring or summer day and many will help develop fine motor skills. Plus tips to make them harder for pre-school aged kids. {Originally
Looking for some activities to do indoors with your kids? Here are 28 entertaining physical, sensorial, and fine motor activities that are easy to pull off.
This week I made Flora a sticky ‘wall’ to play with – I used to do this for Piper and she really loved it! As with most sensory activities at this age (13 months) the attention span isn’t that long, so Flora will only play for a few minutes at a time but she’s really […]
Easter Egg Rockets! Looking for fun and easy plastic egg experiments for school or home? This is the STEM Easter egg activity for you. Create a simple rocket that needs just two ingredients to blast off. Easter is the perfect time to do a STEM activity with Easter eggs!
Fall toddler activities to keep 'em busy, learning a little and out of trouble a lottle! From no prep activities to sensory ones, find them all here
Why don't oil and water mix? Learn why in this easy experiment using simple supplies. Explore how oil and water behaves plus colour mixing.
17 Easy attention builders for Attention Autism at Home. Activities to capture the attention of those with a short attention span.
