Tag Archives: sensory

Happy New Year- smelling of pine needles

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I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas break and are ready to jump into 2012. We have jumped in feet first and are loving it, after a rather sickly Christmas. I decided to take a blogging break between Christmas and New Year and good job; we were all sick. Here’s to a healthy and happy 2012.

On New Years Eve we took down our beautiful Christmas tree and decorations and were left with quite the sweet smelling mess.

I brushed a wee bit up and left the rest for the vacuum to digest. If you are asking the question in your head “What did they do to their tree?” The answer is; yes we did water it but apparently it did not appreciate being inside and decided to shed from day one anyway. My mum’s suggestion was to make a huge tree skirt to catch all the needles, as we obviously did not water it enough! Ta mum.

I put the needles in a box. Added and few treats, placed it on the light table and we had a new years activity to keep the flowers amused.

Rose finds her noise maker. We had one we brought back from Ghana but here are instructions on how to make one with kids.

Daisy had a wood block also brought from West Africa. Here she is trying to blow up balloons. We had fun blowing them up and letting them go.

I included:

  • balloons
  • choclate teddy bears
  • chocolate kisses and hugs
  • noise makers
  • bubbles

Rose hunts for chocolate. She managed to eat a head of her teddy before I noticed, again!

Daisy blows bubbles for her sister to catch.

Balloon volley ball.

Rose was a wee bit scared of the balloons. She howled when she saw me blowing one up but then seemed happy to play with it inflated. I guess the act of blowing up a balloon could look pretty scary.

So we had a great evening with the girls and wonderful friends. The chocolate has been eaten and when I need a reminder of Christmas, I can pull out the pine needles and let the girls play with their smelly pine needle sensory box.

Investigating the Sense of Smell – Scent Swooshers

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Rather than doing the usual scent match up or guessing game I wanted to try something different. We have a product called Scent Swooshers. I opened the pack and took a look:

It contained:

  • 12 scent pastels
  • 6 easy to clean plastic scent swooshers
  • 50 paper inserts
  • An ideas guide

The ideas guide basically told what the scent pastels where (they are labelled 1-12), how they could be combined and also which scents were calming, invigorating and refreshing. The majority were calming.

I prepped the activity by labeling the paper inserts with the numbers 1-12 on the bottom right corner. We found that when the swoosher was closed we could not identify which scent was which and needed to open the swoosher to find the number. The remedy was to label the paper right in the middle.

I added coffee filters and a pen and paper to keep track of which scents were on which coffee filter. Some of the scents were easily recognizable, like lavender but others were more difficult.

As you can see Daisy can barely contain her excitement and finds the swooshers make great pirate eye covers.

Our friends were visiting for a play date and joined us for the scent swoosher exploration. All four children seemed to enjoy smelling the papers. We used the swooshers for six scents and simply sniffed the papers for the remaining 6.

I thought it would be fun to try and match up the scents; hence the added coffee filters; which held the scent quite well. As it turned out I did not need to structure the fun. We just enjoyed sniffing, guessing the scent and trying to work out whether the scent was calming, refreshing or invigorating.

The adults remained at the table trying to match the filters and gave up in the end. I think we were too relaxed from sniffing all the lovely essential oils. For me this activiy brought back memories of burning incense in dorm rooms at university and chilling with friends.

The kids explored the scents for more than 10 minutes then wandered off calmly to play. They did seem to be more relaxed after and played well as a group of 4. My friend Rosemarie and myself enjoyed another scent – coffee and brownies.

Recommendations:

  • Label your papers so you can identify each scent
  • If you would like to try matching, use a limited amount of scents
  • Take only one scent out at a time – the number wears off the pastel and they may become mixed up.

Learning Opportunities:

Science: Understand how we use our senses, discuss how we smell a scent (we read “Smelling” again as part of our 5 a day)

Personal and Social: Identify how we feel, do you think this smell makes you feel relaxed, happy or ready to go? Which scent is your favourite?

Exploring a Fall Sensory Box

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I have been looking at beautiful sensory boxes on a number of blogs and have wanted to give this a try for a while. A fall theme seemed like an easy starter box to try. As an elementary teacher I am used to learning objectives and structured activities so this is another case of me stepping out of my comfort zone; a place where I seem to learn a great deal! It was a learning experience for all of us.

Here is Rose enjoying scooping and pouring beans.

This is the second time I got the box out. The first time was a flop!

I dramatically lifted the lid when Rose was sleeping and Daisy took a look inside. She shuffled the leaves about and then wandered off to find a book. I was disappointed and decided to rethink.

This is a new experience for me and for my kids. We needed help to learn how to play with this new found toy. I used a write and wipe pocket and inserted a very basic counting grid. I gave it to my mother in law (Boma) and she smiled and said “I remember this!”. She was a kindergarten teacher for 40 years in Luxembourg. I did not have to explain what to do.

After we opened the tub for the second time I asked Daisy to scoop out all the pumpkins and took Rose to an old table cloth (now the clean up mat), on the floor. As you can see, she got straight into play. I gave her a few bowls and a ladle.

The rules were made clear; everything must stay on the cloth, no throwing, and no eating/mouthing. This last point was an issue as Rose is 16 months. Everything goes in her mouth. I have to watch like a hawk when small objects are around. She was pretty busy exploring and only needed to be reminded a couple of times.

Boma and Daisy sorted the pumpkins by size and type.

They counted up to 10 and played with basic addition and subtraction.

Daisy then joined Rose on the mat and played scooping and making soup.

I had a whale of a time watching the exploring and learning happen. I was able to interact and talk through what both children were doing. This has inspired me. We will be sharing experiences with lots of sensory boxes.

Here is our box:

  • Shoe boxes – I use these for storage (Zellers)
  • Leaves (Dollar store)
  • Dried kidney beans
  • Paper leaves (these are on special now)
  • Various pumpkins (Dollar store)
  • Cinnamon sticks

Great Ideas for your sensory boxes:

How do you feel sensory boxes have added to the play experience?