One of the cool ideas I discovered via Pinterest was sensory boxes. It looked like the perfect thing for L. So today, I made our first sensory box!
We started very simple - about 5 lbs of oatmeal/quick oats, a $1 package of glow-in-the-dark butterfly "things", some plastic easter eggs, and a couple of toddler cups. As soon as I brought it out, L couldn't wait to start exploring. At first, she just wanted to pull the eggs out and run off with them. I had to get the ball rolling by showing her it was ok to play in. I told her it was like the sandbox at daycare but for inside play and started to fill the eggs with the oats, pouring the oats from one cup to the other, and burying the butterflies in the oats. She caught onto the concept pretty quick and then I just let her lead me in play.
After we got going, it kept her attention for 30 minutes before mommy called bedtime (and she definitely wanted to keep going). I think we're on to something here...
Couple of things to note:
1 - this activity is not for "clean-freak" mommies. At least not until you get your child "trained" to keep the filler in the box (we're still working on this part, no biggie, I own a broom and a vacuum :)). It helped to have her sit on the lid so that any spills were easy to just dump back in once we were done.
2 - no need to spend big bucks on this... this one was less than $15. I had to buy the box, the oatmeal, and the butterflies - everything else we had on hand already.
3 - you are only limited by your imagination. There are so many ideas out there to jump start your creativity! I have plans to do a bunch of these, or at least rotate them every so often so that I can reuse the box itself.
4 - I would recommend starting with edible filler - hence the oatmeal. L will still "taste-test" things every so often, so I started with something that was safe to taste.
5 - have fun!! :)
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