I Want To Put My Feets In! by Tomato Mama

This afternoon Pickle and I were playing with some Moon Sand in his sensory box. We had the tractors out, some "brick" molds, and some cookie cutters I was using for tracing some felt. He grabbed the cookie cutters and started trying them out in the sand. He cut shapes into the sand, molded with them, and stacked them up to let the tractors fill them up. This was all nice clean ( ish) fun. Then, the socks came off.

"Pickle, why are you taking your socks off?"

"Don't look at me Mama." (Uh-oh, that's never a good sign!)

"Do you want to try putting your feet in the sand?" ( He always does this in the sandbox, I had a pretty good hunch this was where this was heading.)

"Yes please!!!!!! I wanna put my feets in the sand to see if it tickles!"

How could I say no to that? He put his feet in. It did tickle.

It was also cold and soft. It was fun, it got messy, and it was learning! Kids want to explore the world with their entire selves. They are storing all of this information and putting it together in their heads to figure out this amazing world. Yes, it got messy. Do I care? Ok, I kind of care. Moon Sand sometimes drives me crazy because it ALWAYS sneaks out of whatever container we put it in. The clean up (which Pickle assisted me in) didn't take long, and it was worth it. Will we do it every day? No, but I'm glad we did.  Now, who knows what he will think up next time. I can't wait to see!

Sensory Experiences by Tomato Mama

One of my secrets for getting through this endlessly snowy winter with a 3 year old is the sensory bin. We are doing our best to get out of the house when we can and play in the snow when it's warm enough but it's still tough. This is always a hit and gets me a little "sanity time!"

I bought a couple of big bags of rice at Aldi ( I may add one more next time I go) and poured them into this "under bed" storage bin. It is low to the ground so that Pickle can easily access it and it also fits under the train table when not in use. Add some trucks and you have an instant preschooler construction zone.

A few pieces of rice do make it out of this from time to time, but our rule is that if he makes a mess, he has to pick it up before moving onto another activity. So far he has done a great job with it. 

There are endless variations to this idea ( more to come on this in the future) but one of our other favorites is to clean out the rice and put in some water and some cups to practice pouring with. You should never leave a child unattended with water so make sure you are able to give this activity your full attention before beginning.  On warmer days it's fun to put in an ice cube and observe as it melts. Also, try freezing some ice cubes with food coloring in them and watch and see with your child what happens as they melt and the colors combine.