Appropriate for all ages Use two or fewer ingredients Use ingredients commonly found in a home
My hope with this series was to remind everyone that play doesn't have to be complicated to be fun! And for those of you who are new to sensory play - I wanted to give you some nice and easy ideas for starting up.
To read more details about each, please click on the links. They will lead you to the complete post. :) As I add more Super Easy Sensory Plays, I will add them to this post!
I thought I'd write a post on how to set up a starter kit of commonly used sensory/play materials for those of you who are just getting started. Every person has their own preferences, of course, but here's a list of what I'd buy (and why!) if I had a budget of $20 and could only shop at one store - the Dollar Tree. I picked the Dollar Tree because it seems to be everywhere in the US, and ought to be pretty easily accessible for most of you. If you don't have one near you, but do have a Target - I've put together a Target sensory kit here.
I was able to come in under budget again because a few of the things on my list were actually less than a dollar (baking soda and salt!). I have noticed a lot of variation in what is available at each Dollar Tree, so this is based off of the selection at mine - you may have more or less available at yours (hopefully more!).
Funnels, a big scooping spoon, and a set of measuring cups are things we use all the time for simple sensory play. Because they have such a wide application, I knew I wanted them in my kit.
Next from the food section, I grabbed oats because they are such a fun material to play with. You could set up our Oatmeal Textures Sensory Bin with these. I chose salt because it's a great material for dumping and scooping. We like to color ours, and you can see us playing with it in our Funnels and Tubes post. I bought flax seed because it would be a great substitution for birdseed - it's still a seed and would behave similarly - so you could do something like our Birdseed Sensory Play with the flax seeds. I bought cooking oil for use in making baby safe Cloud Dough.
I added Penne pasta for art, making necklaces, or doing a Dry Pasta sensory play; I added Linguine for making our Dirt and Worms sensory bin, or our Rainbow Spaghetti. I included beans because they are fun to plant and grow and can also be used as a fill material in small worlds or as a standalone sensory material. And finally I included rice because we love to play with rice by itself, as we did in our Rice Play and we also love to color it and add it to small worlds/sensory bins. You can read how we make rainbow rice in our How To Color Rice post.
Our Dollar Tree didn't have a great selection of miniatures when I was there, but these guys were pretty cute, so I added them as "guys" for small world play.
Play foam is fun for Window Art (we also used it to make our Recycled Car City) and we use pom poms frequently (though I don't have any posts up currently involving them, so you'll just have to trust me on that).
Here is the complete sensory kit I would put together for someone starting out if I had just $20:
Now, there are a few other fantastic things that I'd like to point out at the Dollar Tree:
These are FABULOUS art/craft supplies. All of the above items are frequently utilized in our Art Room, so I figured I would point those out, since at $1 a piece, they are a great deal. I joke not, the Dollar Tree is the BEST place to buy googly eyes! They have the assorted sizes and the huge eyes are hilarious.
Recognize these from my small worlds? Love all three of these. We have several packs of the mixed gems.
And check these out! These are officially "sound tubes" but they'd work great for our Funnels and Tubes. Basically all you'd need to complete the set-up we had in that post is some suction cups, since the Dollar Tree also carries funnels and salt!
Our Dollar Tree had a lot of what I wanted, but there were a few items that I would still want to add to a kit if there was room in the budget/they were available in the store. I'd love to add flour to complete the recipe for Cloud Dough. I was also SO saddened by the lack of cornstarch since it's my personal favorite (you can see how we've played with it with Cornstarch and Water, to make Chilly Ice Cream Goo, and in my Dinosaurs and Sticky Mud world). Finally, I would want to add some sort of coloring - be it food coloring, or our favorite - liquid watercolors. Liquid watercolors last longer, are more vibrant, come in a wider variety of colors, and are completely washable (at least in our experience). We buy our liquid watercolors from Discount School Supply.
To make things as easy as possible, I've also typed up a free printable shopping list, which you can access here: Printable Dollar Tree Shopping List.
For further reading in the vein of Play on a Budget, check out:
I thought I'd write a post on how to set up a starter kit of commonly used sensory/play materials for those of you who are just getting started. Every person has their own preferences, of course, but here's a list of what I'd buy (and why!) if I had a budget of $20 and could only shop at one store - Target. I picked Target because it seems to be everywhere in the US, and ought to be pretty easily accessible for most of you. I'll be back in a few days with the Dollar Tree Sensory Starter Kit.
I was able to put together a pretty great kit and even came in under budget - $19.78! :)
Now for the details - here's what I chose and why:
I found these two for one mesh sponges in the Dollar Section - since one of our favorite activities is setting up a Washing Station, I wanted to be sure to include these. Next I grabbed shaving cream. Shaving cream is such a fun sensory experience and we love it! We've used it in a Shaving Cream Search and in our Dragon World small world. We will be sharing even more ways that we use it as time goes on and I write up more of our activities. It's a definite must-have. Next I included salt. Salt is so fun just by itself as a sensory item - you can draw in it, write in it, pour it, scoop it, etc. We most notably use it with our Funnels and Tubes, but you will see more of it in future posts as well.
Pasta and rice! These are fun plain, or you can color them following either of the two methods I outline in this post on Coloring Rice (follow the same steps for pasta as you would rice). You could use the fettuccine noodles to make my Dirt and Worms sensory bin, or you could use them to make Rainbow Spaghetti. You could do a Dry Pasta sensory bin with the penne pasta, or you could string them and make a pasta necklace or bracelet. You could use rice for Rice Play or for a Rainbow Rice Sensory Bin.
If you have a baby or toddler, you might want to substitute cooking oil for baby oil - because I'm including this with the flour to be able to make Cloud Dough. And the gel colors were the only type of food coloring Target had - but they are included to be able to add color to your sensory bins (not necessary, of course, but for added fun).
With cotton balls, you could do the Wet Cotton Ball sensory play or you could make Baked Cotton Balls, either of which are so much fun. And if you have some of the previously listed items, I included black beans and pinto beans (or dried oats - not pictured) as possible substitutions - they make a great sensory material as well as fill for small world play.
The whole kit together in all its glory:
Though I was able to find much of what I wanted to include, I was disappointed to find that there were no miniature plastic figurines, foam sheets, or glass decorative gems. I use those three items all the time in our sensory and small world play and I would have liked to include them. All three of those things can be purchased at Michaels or another craft store (or the Dollar Store) - if you're willing to make an extra stop.
And lastly, if you have the budget and a child who is no longer tasting/putting things in their mouth - I would strongly recommend purchasing liquid watercolors over food coloring. Liquid watercolors last longer, are more vibrant, come in a wider variety of colors, and are completely washable (at least in our experience). We buy our liquid watercolors from Discount School Supply.
To make things as easy as possible, I've also typed up a free printable shopping list, which you can access here: Printable Target Shopping List
This post is part of a series of posts entitled "Super Easy Sensory Play". Activities included in the series all contain two or fewer ingredients and are items that are generally found in any house, so no need to run to the store for specialty items. They are also appropriate for all ages. I hope that you will give them all a try! You can read the other posts in the series here:
I am writing a short series of posts entitled "Super Easy Sensory Play". Activities included in the series all contain two or fewer ingredients and are items that are generally found in any house, so no need to run to the store for specialty items. I hope that you will give them all a try! You can read the other posts in the series here: Super Easy Sensory Play: Ice and Warm Water
Though I purposefully chose this bag of dried pasta because of its varying colors and shapes, you can use any type of dried pasta you have on hand. If you are using dried spaghetti and have an older toddler, you can even teach them how to break it! I poured the bag into my glass cake pan and also set out a wooden spoon, some measuring cups in different sizes, and an empty muffin tins as props for interacting with the pasta.
X dove right in and started inspecting. I love how he's carefully touching the spirals of the orange pasta below.
After inspecting the various types of pasta (and trying to eat a few, hahaha), he then noticed the measuring cups. Here he's having a blast with the biggest one while watching S play.
S and I have been talking a bit about camouflage lately (I believe it was in a book we read?) and we were tickled to find that the pasta was great at camouflaging some of her plastic "guys". Snake and praying mantis enjoyed being sneaky in the pasta thanks to their camouflage!
S loved touching the pasta, and since I'd provided a muffin tin and big wooden spoon, she decided to start baking pretend muffins.
X loved the sound the pasta made when he drummed on the muffin tin!
Here we're all listening to the sounds the pasta makes as it drops.
S and I also spent some time sorting the pasta by color in the muffin tins, as she is very into sorting things these days.
We had a great time playing with the $2 pasta and have stored it in a Gladware for another day of play soon.
When X was quite small, S and I decided to make some rainbow spaghetti. Cook spaghetti as usual. Once it is cooked, rinse it with cool water. If you are using it for infant play, I would recommend cooking it and presenting it plain at this point. Though food coloring is "safe", it's not recommended for babies to consume, so plain uncolored spaghetti would be best for babies who are still apt to mouth things.
For older children who are beyond mouthing, you can either use food coloring, or you can use liquid watercolors (from Discount School Supply) as we did here. Having used both, I feel like you get much more vibrant colors with fewer drops if you use liquid watercolors, so that's what we use for most of our colored activities. Just add a quantity of pasta and several drops of whatever coloring you're using to a ziploc bag - seal and shake! The shaking is a good job for an older child. I was able to use just one ziploc bag by rinsing it out quickly between each color.
After smooshing around in it a bit, we brought out S's scissors for some cutting practice.
It later became a play world with some of her plastic "guys".
And after that, we used it to make art on paper (I didn't remember to take any pictures of that part, though, oops!). The natural stickiness of the wet pasta helps it adhere to the paper without using glue (though you could also use glue!). We made waves and spirals and left them out to dry. S had fun playing with the dried pasta shapes the next day and enjoyed snapping them.
I have also seen people add cooked spaghetti to baths, though I bet you'd need to give your tub a good scrub afterwards to get off any residue. Seems like it could otherwise be fun to take a "worm" bath!
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