Weather Themed Sensory Tub

Now that school is out for the summer, I'm finally getting back to some of our preschool crafts and activities. We hadn't been doing a whole lot in that department over the last few months, and I'm running out of time!  It's hard to believe that my son will be starting kindergarten at the end of next month!  This summer is going to go so fast!

We've made a few trips to the library in the past couple weeks and aside from signing up for the summer reading program and picking up all kind of story books, we picked up several books about weather.  I grabbed books about storms, tornadoes, wind, and sun.  We are going to spend some time learning about the weather!  And so far, the weather has been perfect too, because one morning we woke up and it was raining.  I pulled out the book about rain, and we made a raindrop craft.  Yesterday was cloudy, so we learned about different types of clouds.  Today is bright and sunny, so we are reading a book about the sun and making a happy sun craft!

To go with our weather studies, I decided to put together a quick weather themed sensory tub.

It's been a while since I've made a new sensory tub for the kids to play with so when they realized what I was doing, they were pretty excited!

The main ingredient in this sensory tub is of course cotton ball clouds!  Yesterday's cloud activity used cotton balls to depict different types of clouds.  We based it on this post from Carrots are Orange.  And now I'm completely out of cotton balls!

I used the same big yellow gear for a sun that I used in our Space themed sensory tub.  I added a few hard golf balls and some little white pom poms to represent hail and snowflakes.  Thanks to last month's hailstorm, the kids are very familiar with how hard (and damaging) hail can be!

The tiny blue beads represent raindrops, and turned out to be a perfect choice.  The kids were picking them up and letting them drop out of the clouds like rain!  

I cut cloud shapes out of a dark patterned piece of felt to represent storm clouds, and I cut lightning bolts out of yellow foam sheets.  As I was going through our craft cabinet I came across some weather words from an old calendar we had and put them in the bin as well.  We can practice spelling out the words, and they can guess what the words are by the pictures on them.  

I found some little American flags that I put in as well.  My son was confused as to what they had to do with weather, until I asked him what made the flags move.  He held it up and blew on it, and then he yelled "wind!"  

The best part of watching them play with their new sensory tub is when they started using all the pieces to act out the Itsy Bitsy spider.  I ran and grabbed a spider from our old Halloween tub, and they put on a little play of the song!  Priceless!!

Halloween Themed Sensory Tub

Fall is here and that means Halloween is right around the corner.  We are still finishing up a few of our dinosaur projects, but I couldn't wait any longer to get the Halloween things out!  This week we decorated our front porch for the spooky holiday, and we picked and added our mini pumpkins to the fall centerpiece on our table (look for that post tomorrow!).  And now we have our Halloween sensory tub!

I was very excited about the filler in this tub.  I wanted something that really stood out for fall and the first thing that came to mind was straw.  I found a good size bag of natural raffia in the clearance section at the store.  I cut it into straw size pieces and it looks really authentic!  

Also in the tub we have,

• Small orange gourds
• Fall colored leaves
• Witch and Pumpkin shaped cookie cutters (Almost all of our tubs have cookie cutters that the kids can use with Play-doh while exploring the tub)
• Various creepy crawlies - spiders, scorpions, ants
• Spooky Halloween shapes - bat, skeletons, etc
• Not pictured:  spider web (really just a couple cotton balls stretched and pulled apart - this was added after we put the spider web up on our porch)

I love how the tub turned out.  And the kids ask to explore it every day.  We have been talking about the different insects and counting their legs.  They love the shapes and feel of the gourds.  Although the ones in this tub our fake, the ones in the centerpiece on the table are real and they can compare them.  

After Halloween, I will remove the creepy crawlies and Halloween items.  I'm working on ideas for a Thanksgiving theme, with pilgrim and Native American items and things we are thankful for.  If you've got any good ideas for this share them in the comments!

Dinosaur Themed Sensory Tub

The items from our Back to School themed sensory tub and our Space themed sensory tub have been put away and replaced with our newest themes.  Last week I shared our Peter Rabbit tub, and today I'm going to share with you our Dinosaur themed tub.  This one was another that was a must make.  Dinosaurs are always a favorite in this house (probably a close second to monkeys).  The first animal sound my daughter learned was "Rawr" for dinosaur!

We plan on spending the next few weeks learning about dinosaurs before we dive into Halloween, Fall, and then Thanksgiving themes!  Oh how I love this time of year!  Our Peter Rabbit tub will stick around for a while though.  We are still having fun reading the book and going through the tub to find all the items as they are mentioned in the story.

I'm happy to have more of a mix of natural or recycled objects in this tub.  There are still lots of plastic pieces, but I'd say our tubs are improving.  With each one I create for the kids, I'm trying to incorporate more materials and textures.  The rocks and plants we collected from our own yard, and the plastic toys we already had.  The wooden dinosaur and the paper eggs I picked up at the craft store.

I also had to include a tiny but cute and recognizable dinosaur in this tub.  This is one of the characters from the PBS kid's show Dinosaur Train, and he fits perfectly into a leftover Easter egg to help show how dinosaurs hatch from eggs.

Object included in our Dinosaur tub:

• Recycled brown paper filler
• Recycled paper eggs
• Wooden Wiggly Dinosaur
• Dried plants
• Rocks
• Plastic plants and flowers - for the herbivores
• Assortment of tiny plastic dinosaurs
• Bone (to represent the dinosaur skeleton)

Check out my dinosaur board on Pinterest to get an idea of some of the projects we'll be doing as part of our Dinosaur unit.  I'm really looking forward to making dinosaur skeletons out of pasta, and making fossils out of Play-doh.  We'll also be making dinosaur feet out of old tissue boxes, and so much more.

We've already picked up two new dinosaur themed chapter books and a few other books to learn about dinosaurs from the library, and we've also got our Dinosaur Train talking dinosaurs for even more fun!  Bring on the "Rawwwwwwwwrrrr"s!

Peter Rabbit Sensory Tub

I am beyond excited about our newest sensory tub.  My husband gave me the idea for this one, and I couldn't wait to get started on it!  If you know me at all you know I'm a fan of anything that has to do with rabbits.  I've loved Peter Rabbit since I was little, and I'm doing my best to make sure my kids love him too! My son was Peter Rabbit for his first Halloween, and he also had a Peter Rabbit themed first birthday party!  That was a while ago, but now that we are getting into these sensory tubs, it only made sense to make a Peter Rabbit themed tub too!

I've seen a lot of gardening themed sensory tubs that include elements of the Peter Rabbit story, or where people have used the story to go along with spring time and gardening themes tub.  I'm not going to use this tub to introduce gardening although we will talk about ways to use all the objects in the tub including the gardening tools.  I just wanted all the objects in the tub to represent something from the story.

However instead of gardening, while we are learning the story of Peter Rabbit, we will be focusing on the topics of fruits and vegetables, eating healthy, and what happens when you get sick (and how to get better).  Both of my kids have colds this week, so it's ironically perfect timing for that little lesson.

The filler for this tub is from a bag of Spanish moss.  It has a wonderful texture and very Earthy smell so it does a great job of representing the dirt of the garden and forest in the story!

Here are some close up shots of what's included in our sensory tub.  The gardening tools represent the tool shed that Peter ran in to hide and also Mr. McGregor working in his garden.  The small flower represents the flower pots that Peter knocked over.  There are three "brass" buttons for the buttons on Peter's jacket.  These small buttons are deceptively heavy so that's a nice surprise when you pick one up!  The net that Peter's buttons got tangled up in is represented by the small square of brown shelf liner.  (I considered using medical gauze or cheesecloth for the net, but both of those were white and I would have wanted to dye them brown.  Since this shelf liner was already brown, it was an easy pick!)  The berries are for the blackberries that Peter's siblings went to gather.  The cup and the spoon are for the teaspoon of tea that Mrs. Rabbit gave to Peter when he was sick.

The "food" pieces are from my kids' kitchen set.  There is a slice of pie because Peter's father was put into one of Mrs. McGregor's pies.  I've also included a carrot (just because everyone knows rabbits like carrots!), peas because the mouse in the story was carrying peas in her mouth, an onion because Mr. McGregor was hoeing onions, and lettuce because that's one of the vegetables that Peter stopped to eat.  The loaf of bread is for Mrs. Rabbit buying bread at the baker's.  

There's a small shoe by the fence that represents Peter losing his shoes in the garden, and of course the fence because Peter had to crawl under the fence to get in and out of Mr. McGregor's garden.  

The most difficult piece to find for this tub was a watering can.  This time of year, watering cans are few an far between, especially the miniature one I was looking to include here.  Waiting till springtime would have been easier, but I was too excited about this tub to wait!  So I improvised.  I used a small plastic measuring cup from the kid's kitchen set and wrapped it in duct tape to make it silver like metal.  Voila, instant watering can!  Inside it is a small toy rabbit.  

I also pulled out our collection of Peter Rabbit books to go with the sensory tub.  We have two copies of the  original story.  (One my mom gave to me in 1994!)  The "Peter Rabbit Says" book is a cute little story using several Beatrix Potter characters that play a memory game while waiting in line at the general store.  There's a Peter Rabbit board book, a coloring book, and a large Beatrix Potter journal that is more like a scrapbook of everything Beatrix Potter.  There are lots of little snipits and pictures about Peter Rabbit throughout the journal.  

And the last little book is "Pierre Lapin", Peter Rabbit in French!  I was so excited to find this book!  We'll spend our French lessons working on words from this book, and then try to identify the objects in the sensory tub using French.

Check out the sensory tubs link at the top of the page to see the other sensory tubs we've made!

Space Themed Sensory Tub

My first attempt at a sensory tub was a huge hit, so I thought I'd make another one to go with our outer space theme this week.  I didn't look up any ideas for this one, and I wanted to keep it pretty simple (ie very budget friendly), so here's what I came up with.  I used only things I had on hand, plus a $1 package of glow in the dark space objects from the Dollar Store.  Can't beat that!

Objects I've included in our outer space sensory tub are:

• Black filler paper to represent the darkness in space.
• Rocket ship cookie cutter
• Large yellow cog from a building set to represent the sun
• Ping pong ball to represent the moon, the indentations are the craters!
• Aliens
• Space shapes including planets, stars, and comets
• Salt dough balls to represent asteroids or moon rocks.

Unfortunately I couldn't find an astronaut figure, but we do have this little book about Space that has an astronaut on the cover (another great $1 find!).  It's already a huge hit and has been a great way to introduce some of the vocabulary we'll be talking about this week.  After it sits on the table in the sun for a while, I plan on taking it in the bathroom with the lights off so they can see the glow in the dark objects.  

I'm now keeping me eye out for anything I can use for sensory tubs wherever I go.  Whether it's picking up around the house, or in the yard, going to the grocery store, or before I throw anything in the trash.  Soon I'll be able to include a larger variety of textures, shapes, and sizes in each tub.  It only gets better from here!

Delving into Montessori Methods

I've been curious lately about different preschool teaching methods, and the Montessori method really intrigues me.  I've watched videos from Montessori preschool classrooms, and I'm shocked.  The kids are so well behaved, so patient, and so very smart.  I can't help but wonder how they do it!  I think my kids are pretty darn smart, but sometimes I feel they are definitely lacking in those other two areas (actually it's me that's really lacking the patience).

So I did what I always do, I turned to Google!  What exactly is it about Montessori that works so well?  Well, I really don't have the answer to that question yet, but I'm going to give a few things a try and see if it works for us.

Something I keep coming across in my research is sensory tubs.  Now these aren't actually Montessori, but seem to be used commonly in preschools and with families who do Montessori at home.  My first thought when I see them is "my kids would just dump this thing on the floor".  Because that's what they always do!  My second thought was "well what's the point?"  After my husband explained it (without doing any research whatesoever, he's just knows everything), I was on board enough to put my first tub together.

I saw a great back-to-school themed sensory tub over at Counting Coconuts, an incredibly organized and very informative blog, that seemed the perfect place to start.  School supplies are definitely easy to find and very affordable right now, and our son is starting pre-k in less that 2 weeks.  So we are certainly in back to school mode at this house!

After a quick (haha just kidding) trip to the store, I came home and started putting together the tub.  I found these great plastic tubs with lids at the Dollar Tree.  I picked up three of them so I can begin putting together a fall themed tub and whatever else comes to mind!  Then I raided my school supply bin for all the other goodies.

Items I've included in our version of the back to school sensory tub:

• shredded paper filler
• flexible ruler
• crayons
• lined paper with three hole punches to look like notebook paper
• pencils
• erasers
• crayons
• reward stickers
• glue stick
• safety scissors
• Play-Doh and a school bus and star cookie cutters
• apple
• paper clips
• small book
• small boy figure - because our son is the one going to school this year.  My daughter will probably be the one using this the most, and she can associate the figure with her brother going to school.

I've also been making some changes to the cabinet that was the "kid's pantry" in our kitchen.  The kitchen is where we do most of our preschool activities so I wanted to keep the trays we'll use in there as well.  The kid's pantry used to hold buckets of play food and dishes, and other toys that really were just always dumped and picked back up, never really played with.

I didn't take a picture of the top shelf, but the kids can't reach that one and it's where I keep all of the workbooks, coloring books, flash cards, and the like.  The next shelf now has our globe, and a sorting activity.  In the center is a mix of 4 different types of dried beans.  The beans can be sorted into the four outside dividers.

The next shelf has a tray with some plates, silverware, and play food.  When we have more space, I'll have a separate tray for items to set a table and keep the food on its own tray.  This is one of my daughter's favorite activities though.  She serves us this pizza all the time!  Beside it is a tray, also from the Dollar Tree, with a pouring activity.  

The bottom shelf holds my daughter's cash register and another tray with more of our back to school items.  This idea was from the blog mentioned above and can be a fine motor activity of placing erasers on top of the pencils.  One of the cups holds the erasers.  The other cup has more paper clips that can also be sorted, turned into paper clip chains or used to create patterns.  I know these are two separate activities, but like I said....we're lacking a little space right now!

I'm excited to get started and see how the kids take to these new activities and new rules that go with them (ie carrying the tray to the table, keeping everything on the tray, returning the tray to the same spot when finished, etc).  My son seems very eager and also very excited about it.  He immediately started with the pouring activity.  I followed this very detailed outline for a Montessori pouring activity.  He began by pouring all of the beans into the other cup as I showed him.  Then he started only pouring a little bit and would talk about which side had more (or which side had less).  Then he'd pour just a few beans and count them.  After a while he stopped turning the tray around and just moved the empty cup over to the right side.  

After a few minutes watching him I now totally get it.  He was learning independently with just a brief introduction, and he was excited and imaginative about it!  He also did great keeping everything in its place and has been telling his sister to do the same!  It all seemed so simple and frankly boring to me before, but seeing such a basic activity inspire so much was really eye opening!  I can't wait to learn even more about Montessori and create more trays and tubs for the kids.  Now just to find some more bookshelves!