Australia Day Sensory Fun

It's sensory tub day today if you're following along with Nurture Store's Simple play:: complex learning series, and I went overboard. I completely forgot about the 'simple' part of this fantastic learning series.

It all began late last night when I was trying to think of an Australian themed sensory tub that I hadn't seen done before and that we had the materials to make. Whilst I was looking for inspiration I spotted our Aussie Flag that Numnut bought to put on the car until he got home and realised how big it was, too big for the car it might have been, but it fit our table perfectly. I lay it on the table thinking I'd use it to set the scene but then the wheels started turning in my head-what if I made the whole table the sensory 'tub'? Then I went crazy. I used the flag as a stencil and lay salt over the stars and white lines in the Union Jack, then I used some old red pasta we had for the red lines in the Union Jack. I almost left it there but decided to cover the whole table, so I covered the blue of the flag in blue shaving cream. To be honest, I was pretty pleased with the outcome, maybe even a little proud-but was it necessary? No. Was it simple? Absolutely not.

I sat down and started thinking. What could I have done differently? We didn't have a lot. How could I have made a simple Aussie sensory tub? This got me thinking about how, even though I love creating sensory tubs for the girls, I really don't think they're necessary. I started thinking about all the amazing sensory experiences they gain simply from playing outside. Then I couldn't help but say 'duh' out loud. I grabbed a bag of dirt from our sensory materials shelf, went outside and collected the leaves and gumnuts we used last week in our Koala Pool, some bark I'd been saving to paint with and placed them all in a tub. Job done! Now why couldn't I have done that in the beginning?

If you're wondering which was more popular with the girls, there wasn't actually a clear favourite, they played with both pretty equally. The flag became a see for their boat for a little bit and then Bubbles used the shaving cream to paint with on her easel. At quiet time Bubbles took the simple tub into her room and made a stable for her ponies. Squiggles, well she had fun squishing all the sensory materials and attempting to eat them all. :)

Next time though I'm going to try and not stress about making something amazingly wonderful and focus more on what experiences I want the girls to have.

Are you following along with Nurture Store's series? What kind of sensory tub did your tot play in today?

-Victoria

Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.  You know you're infant/child best, use your own judgement-considering your infant/child's temperament, habits, behaviour and development before you play with a new play medium.