sensory play

I Spy Christmas Sensory Bag

I love to make crafts and activities with the kids based on books. It’s a fun way to help reinforce what they saw in the book. The inspiration for this I Spy Christmas sensory bag is the book I Spy Christmas. Last year, we made a Christmas Counting I Spy Sensory Bottle and the kids really enjoyed discovering what they could see inside it.

This year, after reading I Spy Christmas and finding the hidden things within its pictures, I made this simple I Spy Christmas Sensory Bag.

To make this Christmas sensory bag, all you will need is:

medium sized resealable bag
coconut flakes
bag of small Christmas shaped buttons or small Christmas themed trinkets

We actually found a bag of flaked coconut that was very expired when one of my sons was helping me clean out the pantry so it was perfect to use in this sensory activity rather than wasting it.

Place the coconut and Christmas shapes inside the resealable bag and close. For younger children, you can also add packing tape folded over the top so that they can’t open it.

Ours included shapes like a Christmas tree, gingerbread men, stockings, and most importantly, baby Jesus. After all, it is Him that we celebrate at Christmas and Him that I most want my kids to focus on even in a simple sensory bag. Jesus is the treasure waiting to be discovered in this sensory bag and in our lives.

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This activity is part of a series of activities with children’s Christmas books. Follow along this week to see the fabulous ideas! 10 bloggers, 10 books and 10 days of Christmas Activities inspired by children books that are faith based. Make sure to follow along, you can take a look at the schedule over at Inspired by Familia blog. Here are our fabulous bloggers: Inspired by Family, Meaningful Mama, Teaching Mama, Beautiful Messy Motherhood, Happy Home Fairy, Simple home Blessings, The Chaos and the Clutter, Creative Family Fun, True Aim Education and Sunshine Whispers!

Christmas Counting I-Spy Sensory Bottle

Melted Snowman Sensory Bottle

By Sharla Kostelyk

In the words of my kids, this is the “cutest sensory bottle ever”! I came up with the idea to make a melted snowman sensory bottle when I was at the craft store and saw an adorable snowman making kit. I imagine what would be left of a melted snowman and found a way to represent it in a discovery bottle.

When I set out this year to create a new sensory bottle every month, I worried that I would run out of ideas, but they always come from some inspiration or another.

It’s the middle of November and where I live in Canada, there’s usually enough snow to have built a snowman family in the yard by now but as of today, there isn’t any snow on the ground so this melted snowman sensory bottle really got the kids’ imaginations going.

Melted Snowman Sensory Bottle:

Materials needed:

large empty water bottle (I used a Voss water bottle because I like the shape of them)
5 dry black beans
3 black or grey buttons
2 colourful larger buttons
orange sponge, cut into the shape of a carrot
2 twigs
small piece of fabric, cut in a rectangle
2x 5 oz. bottles of clear glue
scissors

Empty the water from the water bottle and squirt the clear glue in. Add warm water to almost fill the bottle and add the lid back on and then shake the glue and water together for a bit to combine. Little ones are often very helpful with this task!

VOSS Water Plastic Bottles Clear Glue Orange Sponge

Add the other items into the bottle. The twigs are for the arms, the black beans for the mouth, the fabric strip for the scarf, the dark buttons for buttons, the colourful larger buttons for the eyes, and the carrot shaped sponge for the nose.

Add the lid back on and your melted snowman sensory bottle is ready to use for play. If you have younger children, you may want to hot glue the lid in place so they can’t open it. As with all sensory and exploration activities for kids, adult supervision is of course recommended.

Join me for a free 5 part email series Sensory Solutions and Activities (just pop your email into the box below) and get a printable list of 175 Great Sensory Ideas.

Christmas Counting I-Spy Sensory Bottle

Snowflake Sensory Bottle

Sky Sensory Bottle

By Sharla Kostelyk

We have been enjoying our sensory bottle creations and it is always fun to come up with new themes and ideas for them. I was inspired to make this sky sensory bottle after making our sky sensory bin and wanting to use the adorable parachute glider that was in the In the Sky toob I used to make that sensory bin.

After I made this sensory bottle, I was trying to take pictures of it inside where I normally take photos and my daughter Granola Girl insisted that Sky sensory bottles needed to be played with (and therefore photographed) outside! Granola Girl loves to be barefoot, loves to be outside and feel the grass between her toes. I never think to bring our sensory activities outdoors so it’s nice to have her to remind me to expand my way of thinking.

She was absolutely right about the sky sensory bottle belonging in the great outdoors! She practised her hand modelling skills while I took the pictures and then she ran off to explore with the sensory bottle, holding it up to the sky to see what it looked like with the sun shining through it. I’m so glad she has such a free spirit and reminds me of the beauty in simple things.

Sky Sensory Bottle:

Materials needed:

empty water bottle (I used a Voss water bottle)
350 mL (12 oz.) bottle of blue hair gel
In the Sky Toob

VOSS Water Plastic Bottles Safari Ltd In The Sky TOOB by Safari

Empty the water from the water bottle and then squirt some gel into the bottle and add an item from the In the Sky Toob. Continue to layer gel and items from the tube so that the items suspend in the blue “sky”.

Add the lid and your sky sensory bottle is ready to use for play. If you have younger children, you may want to hot glue the lid in place so that they can’t open it. As with all sensory and exploration activities for kids, adult supervision is recommended.

Join me for a free 5 part email series Sensory Solutions and Activities (just pop your email into the box below) and get a printable list of 175 Great Sensory Ideas.

Take Flight with a Sky Sensory Bin

Simple Fall Sensory Bottle

By Sharla Kostelyk

This Fall Sensory Bottle is lovely for discovery of the season and can be used as a calm down bottle as well. Kids will love watching the falling leaves (no pun intended!) and shiny sequins.

Materials needed:

large empty water bottle (I used a Voss water bottle because I like the look and size of them)
plastic autumn leaves
leaf shaped confetti
sequins in autumn colours
glitter

Place the plastic fall coloured leaves, leaf shaped confetti and glitter in an empty water bottle. Fill with water and replace the lid. If you’ll be using this fall sensory bottle with younger children, you may want to secure the lid with hot glue so that they won’t be able to open it.

The colours in this sensory bottle are lovely. When I added the water to mine, the plastic leaves’ colour bled just slightly making the water a hint of a fall orangey-red colour.

Join our free 5 part email series Sensory Solutions and Activities and get our Sensory System Behaviours Easy Reference Cards.

Spring Sensory Bottle

Take Flight with a Sky Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

Last year, we did a flight unit in our homeschool and I always like to add sensory elements to everything we study. It allows the kids to explore and use their imaginations and helps their retention. Recently, we created three sky sensory activities that would have complemented that unit nicely including this sky sensory bin. They would also work well with a weather unit.

For this sky sensory bin, we used a base of dry pasta that we dyed blue. If you’ve never dyed pasta before, you can read about how to do it using either rubbing alcohol or vinegar. (click those words and it will take you to simple tutorials for each method)

For the actual bin for this, I used a clear food storage container that was fairly deep. After filling it with the blue pasta shells, we added some of the items from the In the Sky Toob and used the remaining items from the tube to add to our Sky Sensory Bag and Sky Sensory Bottle.

The kids cut cloud shapes out of white foam and added them into the bin. We also added cotton balls to represent fluffy clouds. I like how colourful the items are. They make this such a cheerful looking sensory bin.

The hot air balloon from the In the Sky Toob was a particularly popular element and there were several imaginative play scenarios that resulted from it.

For dozens of other sensory bin ideas, check out all of our past Sensory Bins.

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book all about it.

Join our free 5 part email series Sensory Solutions and Activities and get our Sensory System Behaviours Easy Reference Cards.

Monster Sensory Bottle

By Sharla Kostelyk

I like googly eyes. I blame my friend Christie. She thinks that everything is better with googly eyes and puts them on random things like plants all over her house. It’s funny and cute and it’s apparently rubbed off on me because now I buy googly eyes and use them for strange things like this monster sensory bottle.

Materials needed:

water bottle (I used a small Voss bottle)
green hand sanitizer
different sizes and colours of googly eyes
googly eye finger puppets

To make this monster sensory bottle, pour hand sanitizer to almost the very top of an empty water bottle. Next, add the googly eyes and the googly eye finger puppets. Note that you will have to straighten the finger puppets to get them through the small opening at the top of the water bottle. Once they are pushed through, they will go back to their proper shape.

If you want to make this sensory bottle even more fun for children to play with, give them some foam stickers to add to the outside of the bottle to personalize their “monster”.

I like the large googly eyes myself, but my kids seemed to prefer the eyes in different colours. This is a very simple and inexpensive sensory bottle to make. Kids can explore different sizes and colours while playing with this monster discovery bottle.

Join our free 5 part email series Sensory Solutions and Activities and get our Sensory System Behaviours Easy Reference Cards.
If you are looking for other monster ideas, you may also want to check out our Monster Sensory Bin or our Eyeball Sensory Bin.