sensory play Archives - Page 2 of 6

Rose petal sensory play tub

27/07/2017 by Cathy James 2 Comments

One of my girls is so romantic, and this rose petal sensory play tub was made just for her. It smells wonderful and gives children a new natural material to explore – and it’s lovely for imaginary play.

Rose petal sensory play tub

Watch our Sensory Tub Masterclass

Click to play on the video above to see our sensory tub masterclass. You’ll learn how to make a sensory tub for your children using simple materials, the benefits of sensory tubs for children, and how to use a sensory tub to teach children about math, literacy, science and fine motor skills.

You’ll also see lots of ideas for sensory tub fillings plus find out how to get great printables to add to your tubs. Subscribe to NurtureStore’s YouTube channel to get more sensory play videos!

Both my children have their own special plants in our garden, which they chose, planted and help to look after.

My youngest {and most romantic} dreamed of a yellow rose, which begins to flower in her birthday month of June. {You can see B’s conker tree here.}

The first of the blooms are just starting to drop and, before they make their way to the compost heap, we gathered some up to make a fragrant sensory tub.

Rose petals have such a silky feel, and we only needed a few flowers to fill the whole tub.

We added in a wedding pair of Sylvanian rabbits, along with some foil shapes for confetti and a little wedding breakfast feast.

And L collected some extra tiny flowers to make the bride a bouquet.

At first, she always seems to love to just explore the touchy-feely qualities of a sensory tub – and of course this time there was the added extra of the lovely smell.

We searched on Spotify for ‘wedding march’ and found some great music to play in the background.

Once she’s enjoyed the feeling, the imaginary play takes over. Here’s the bride and groom and their guests posing for the official photograph!

Such a lovely, fragrant sensory tub – it would be great to keep the children happy at a summer wedding!

Bedtime sensory tub: lavender dyed rice

26/07/2017 by Cathy James 41 Comments

Here’s an easy way to make lavender dyed rice for a relaxing lavender sensory tub.

How to make a lavender sensory tub with dyed, scented rice. Lovely!

Bedtime sensory tub: how to dye rice

Watch our Sensory Tub Masterclass

You’ll also see lots of ideas for sensory tub fillings plus find out how to get great printables to add to your tubs. Subscribe to NurtureStore’s YouTube channel to get more sensory play videos!

Ahh, just looking at that picture makes me relax a little.

We often use sensory play as a lovely way to chill out after school, or to transition from a busy day towards bedtime.

Tired children sometimes need a little direction and sensory play offers an activity idea that’s interesting but also calming and relaxing.

Play dough is our favourite choice for sensory play but today we tried something different: lavender dyed rice.

It’s touchy-feely and smells wonderful – perfect for chilled out kids.

Here’s how to dye rice and make a bedtime sensory tub.

Start by placing your uncooked rice in a plastic bag – double bag as a precaution against tears and spills!

Then mix up your colour. I blended blue and pink food colouring to make a lovely lavender shade.

Pour the food colouring into the bag of rice and stir, stir, stir to distribute the colour.

Lay out the rice to dry over night and your rice is ready. Easy peasy!

To add an extra sensory element to our bedtime tub we added the flower heads from some lavender stalks.

The rice has such a pleasant feel, as it’s soft and pours through your hands. With the added lavender it smells so relaxing too.

You could add scoops and spoons and bowls for your children to play with the rice.

Or hide some little treasures in the tub for them to hunt for.

My kids didn’t even want to wait for me to add any extras – the colour, scent and feel of the rice was irresistible and they just had to play straight away.

Kids art :: painting on texture

19/07/2017 by Cathy James 4 Comments

Remember the kids art idea we tried last week, exploring texture? Here’s what happened when we added painting on top – lovely sensory, textured experiments!

Kids art :: painting on texture [Read more…]

Seashell lemon play dough recipe

06/07/2017 by Cathy James 4 Comments

I made this lemon play dough recipe while we were away at the beach. It’s perfect for seaside sensory play with some lovely shells.

Here’s the recipe.

Homemade lemon play dough recipe [Read more…]

Sandcastle messy play :: homemade cloud dough recipe

04/07/2017 by Cathy James 28 Comments

Sandcastle messy play with a homemade cloud dough recipe is perfect for summer days when you can’t get to the real beach – or when you want a relaxing sensory playtime in the shade of your own home.

Here’s the recipe:

sandcastle messy play cloud dough recipe

Sandcastle messy play :: homemade cloud dough recipe

Watch our Sensory Tub Masterclass

You’ll also see lots of ideas for sensory tub fillings plus find out how to get great printables to add to your tubs. Subscribe to NurtureStore’s YouTube channel to get more sensory play videos!

Cloud dough is one of the recipes in my e-book The Homemade Play Dough Recipe Book.

It’s very easy to make and a totally different sensory experience to traditional play dough.

To make it, you will need:

4 cups of flour

1 cup of oil (we most often use baby oil, to get a lovely fragrance)

glitter is optional, but we like some extra sparkle!

All you need to do is combine the ingredients in a bowl and mix…

until it combines and gives you a texture that looks like you’re about to make pastry.

But… give the cloud dough a squish with your hand and you’ll see how it comes together and holds its shape! So cool!

My girls find it irresistible. It’s such a touchy-feely material to play with.

Be aware that this is messy play (that’s half the fun , isn’t it) – although I find the clean up afterwards is quick and easy.

I wouldn’t try it in a room with a carpet, but it sweeps up fine from my kitchen floor.

The squishing is so much fun and as the dough holds its shape it’s perfect for making sandcastles.

I set out some scoops and bowls in different sizes and we had our own homemade mini beach!

The girls made some flags for their sandcastles {from toothpicks and tissue paper} to go on top. You can add little people and a little square of fabric and set up a picnic day out on the beach.

Sunshine play dough recipe

18/06/2017 by Cathy James 1 Comment

Here’s a sunshine play dough recipe idea that’s great for sensory play for summer and the solstice.

Sunshine play dough recipe

Watch our Playdough Masterclass

Click play on the video above to see our playdough masterclass.

This video gives you everything you ever wanted to know about play dough: how to make homemade playdough with quick and easy recipes; the benefits of playdough for children; and lots of sensory play activities using play dough including playdough math activities, playdough literacy activities, and playdough fine motor skills activities.

Plus find out how to get printable playdough recipe cards and printable play mats. It’s an excellent beginners guide to play dough!

Subscribe to NurtureStore’s YouTube channel to get more gardening and nature study videos!

We never need much excuse to bring out the play dough and as we’re learning all about the solstice this week we thought we’d make some play dough sunshines. To start, we mixed up a batch of our favourite easy play dough recipe and added in some yellow food colouring to make it nice and sunny.

Then we raided the craft shelves to find some yellow, orange and gold materials. We found drinking straws, buttons, foil shapes and sequins, craft sticks and some glittery paper strips.

Play dough is a fantastic sensory material for children to explore and it’s always great to add in some extra textures when you play.

To get some inspiration we did a Google Image search for ‘sun art’ and the children enjoyed clicking through to see the sun pictures and got some ideas for how they might make a sun with their play dough. They especially liked the mosaic artwork – an idea for a future art technique to explore!

Then the children set to work. One of the best things about play dough is that everyone can use it, from babies to grandparents! It’s an open-ended material and so versatile, and today the children all had clear ideas about how they were going to use the materials on offer to make their sun.

Every sunshine turned out different… and glorious!