Dirt Sensory Bin Challenge

About a month ago we were lucky enough to be invited to take part in Sarah from Little Bins for Little Hands Rice Sensory Bin Challenge. I'm exited to say that this has now turned into a monthly simple sensory bin  challenge! Each month there'll be a new, simple sensory bin filler and we'll follow the same simple guidelines from the Rice Sensory Bin Challenge. You can read all about it over at the Monthly Child-Led Sensory Bin Challenge!

 

This month's chosen filler was a nice and simple one: dirt! I'd love for you to join in too and share your experiences with me. The guidelines are super simple: Set out a bin of dirt only. Please do not create a theme with in the bin or set out a bunch of things for the child to grab rather talk with them if they need some direction or are on the younger side. Maybe a scoop and a container could be acceptable to add. Let your child bring to the bin what they might be interested in to play. Let it be as child led as possible but feel free to help as you see fit with your child.

To invite the girls to play I simply filled a container with dirt and invited the girls to come play with it. Unfortunately Bubbles was completely uninterested, not too much of a suprise as she hates getting her hands dirty but I was hoping she would at least grab a spade and have a dig but she opted to simply play on the swing whilst Squiggles explored the sensory bin.

Unlike her sister Squiggles couldn't wait to play with the dirt, she often plays in our veggie boxes and ate quite a bit of dirt when we made a mud factory this summer but I've never really given her the opportunity to play with dirt solely without providing tools of some sort.

At first she simply poked the dirt, exploring what it was.

Then she had fun pushing her hands into the dirt and making handprints. She really did sit there for a full five minutes JUST making handprints.

Once she was finished making handprints, Squiggles decided to ignore the dirt and push the tub around our yard making car noises.

From there she decided to climb into the box! In hindsight I wish I'd taken her socks off so she could have felt the dirt between her toes, but I didn't.

She then went on to pooring handfuls of dirt over her socks AND attempting to poor it down my cleavage! When I expressed my wish to NOT have dirt poored down my top she began emptying the dirt out onto  the concrete at which point I decided it was time to end the activity.

I've left the tub out in the hope that Bubbles will eventually explore it but at the moment it's just keeping Squiggles entertained.

Now you've read about how we interpreted this challenge why not hop on over and read about all the different ways this challenge has been interpreted at these fabulous blogs:

Little Bins For Little Hands

House of Burke

Preschool Powol Packets

Life Over C’s

Squiggles and Bubbles

Life with Moore Babies
Still Playing School

Teach me Mommy

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.