These DIY Busy jars or Sensory tubes are perfect for toddlers and little hands.
Sensory play includes any activity that stimulates any of your child’s five senses: touch, smell, taste, sound or sight. Sensory play is only limited by your own or your child’s imagination. Sensory play is an important part of development and learning.
Sensory activities are offered or are set up as an invitation to encourage children to use their senses while they play, create, investigate and explore.
When we talk about the senses sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste it opens up the learning world. Any or all of these can be incorporated into play to create a sensory play activity/invitation.
Supplies:
Soda Straws
Large confetti in assorted shapes
Scissors
A wide mouth jar or bottle with a lid
Anything else you might like to add like erasers, pom poms, small toys etc
Directions:
Cut 6” of rainbow ribbon
Cut the rainbow ribbon into several smaller pieces
Select several colors of both soda and milkshake straws and cut them in assorted lengths.
Layer them by color into the jar
As you are adding the straws begin to sprinkle in the confetti and sections of rainbow ribbon into the jar
As you reach the middle of the jar add a unicorn
Continue layering in the straws, confetti and ribbon
As you reach the top, secure the lid and allow your child to shake, spot and explore the unicorn jar!
These calm down or sensory bottles work on older children too, especially if they are part of the making process and get to select what goes inside their bottles. You could use lego, toy trinkets and other collectables inside the bottles to gain your child’s focus.
How do sensory or calm down bottles work? The key is in the slow movement of the items inside the bottles. Whether it is small trinkets, air bubbles or oil bubbles. They help the child to focus their brain on the small movement and slow down, they slow down their breathing and in turn regulate their brain waves to a calmer level.
Sensory bottles are not just about calming down they are a fun way to introduce math and science to your children at and early age. You can add plastic numbers, letters or colors for a child. Sensory bottles can be about a find and seek to play for multiple items and educational learning for young or preschool children.
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