New Year's Day Sensory Play

Happy New Year's Bin!

I've noticed that different kids enjoy different tasks. My little one LOVES to find items. Bells, flash cards, popsicle sticks, pool noodles, a straw and everything else I've tried to hide for him

If you're not familiar with Star From Afar, he would have me hide the star multiple times a day some days. So fun! 

If you have followers me for any period of time you know items are often sorted by color in our home. Picking out items by color has been a game saver for quick sensory bin set up.

I did however impulse buy a bag of disco balls. If you are wondering, I fully intend to impulse buy any disco balls that I find and it will be ok. The little one and I definitely played with light running to the sliding doors at Target to put them in the sun for a solid 15 minutes.

Anyways, what would be most helpful about sensory bins? What questions do you have?

No Prep Pre-Reading Active Toddler Activity

This activity has been a favorite and is little to no prep. It can be done with whatever you have around the house 

The Usborne book series "That's not my..." Is perfect for this activity but any book with repetition will work well 

For this book series I took note cards and sticky notes to create a flash card that could have matched letters stuck to it

That's it!

To make it active for my wild one I hid #BabyBoyFollum run to the kitchen while I hid the three letters around the room. 

He then had the option of sticking the sounds to the note card himself, pointing to the spot it should go, or tracing the letters himself.

We did this for the repeating words 

"not" and "too." So he can 'read' the pages to me. This works because the pages are very repetitive and based on the same pattern. 

We have done similar with a Pete the Cat book Twinkle Twinkle Little Star where he points out the word 'twinkle' by seeing that it's the same letters. I'm that book we emphasize and find both the 't' sounds and the 'le' sound as they repeat often.

What sounds do you have in you books 

Other books this could work for (I will try to get back to add book details)

Baby Beluga 

Books with songs 

Roll over 

Monkeys on the bed