Rainbow Rice

We have been doing lots of colour activities this week. One that I was very excited about was Coloured Rice.

How to make coloured rice

You will need

rice

vinegar

food colouring

baking tray

oven

Put the rice into a bowl and add vinegar, I never work in exact amount so just made sure there was enough to cover all the rice.

Add your chosen colour, again just put enough so it colour all the rice in the shade you want.

Then spread over a baking tray and cook for about 30mins at about 120 degrees. 

Repeat with another colour if you wish.

 I decided to do three colours this time. I put the diferent colours into seperate bowls. I put them into a big tube and also included some pots, utensils and funnels.

 The children had lots of fun, pouring out and mixing the colours.

 The children enjoyed poring, scooping, mixing and investigating the rice.

 This activity is also great for mark making. Older children could even write their names in the rice.

 Some of the other activities we have done this week are;

Coloured Spaghetti

 

Frogs in Green Jelly

Coloured pom poms and tubes

 Blue water and blue objects

Posting Pom Poms though coloured tubes

I have always been a fan of pom poms for developing fine motor skills and Hartley has enjoyed posting them through tubes since he was about 6 months old. 

This week I am doing lots of COLOUR activities with Hartley and the children I look after. I saw this idea on pinterest a few months ago and knew I had to do it 

 I painted the old wrapping paper tubes with colours that matched the pom poms I had. Luckily I also had matching coloured bowls.

I tied the tubes onto my fireguard but you could tape them to a wall or piece of furniture.

 Hartley loved this activity. He instantly knew what to do and keeps going back to it. He is a little bit too young to understand you have to match the colours yet, however I talk to him about the colours and I am sure by doing more and more activities like this he will begin to sort and match colours.

The older children I look after were able to sort the colours and have began to name the colours. 

The children have had lots of fun with the pom poms and have used them in lots of their play including filling cups with them and then pretending to drink them!

Of course pom poms should not be used with young children unsupervised, but I am a big believer that we should allow our children to develop their fine motor skills by handling small items.

I have lots of ideas of how I can extend this activity so watch this space!

Sensory Tea Time - using real ingredients

Hartley loves playing with his tea set at the moment. He spends hours pretending to serve his teddies tea and loves pouring water from his tea pot in the bath.
I decided to add a sensory element to his play and make it even more fun.

I put together a tray with his plastic tea set. I put water in one tea pot and filled a small jug with milk (I mixed a bit of milk with water) I then added pots of sugar, coffee granules and tea bags. I then left out the tray ready for Hartley and his friend to play and explore.

 Hartley loved scooping coffee and sugar and mixing it together.

They both enjoyed pouring the milk and water, sometimes they even poured it into the cups! I had to refill the pots many of times.

I then got a bowl so they could reuse the water and milk and it contained it better.  In the end this contained an amazing mixture of coffee, tea and milky water.

The great thing about using real ingredients was they got to feel the different textures and experienced the different smells.

The children played and explored all morning. We talked about the colours, textures, smells. The noises that the tea bags made when dropped into the water.

This was a great activity that I will be doing again soon. You could also use different types of coffee, hot chocolate or anything else you want. You could also use real tea pots if you wanted to.

Cornflakes and Diggers

I found an old box of cornflakes in the cupboard and instead of throwing it away, decided to put it to good use. For PLAY.

 

 I put the cornflakes into a tub and then added a few small diggers and dumper trucks.

 Hartley got into the tub straight away.

 

He loved listening to the sounds of the cornflakes crunching when he drove his trucks over them.

  

 He enjoyed filling up the dumper truck and emptying it again.

 Hartley spent most of the afternoon lying down in the tub. For some reason he found the cornflakes comfortable!

 At one point I even thought he was going to fall asleep in the bowl of cornflakes, funny boy!

Planting Sensory Tub

 Hartley loves digging so I made him a planting sensory tub. Perfect for using either inside or outside.

I put new child friendly soil into a tub and then added a few pots, utensils and a watering can.

Hartley loves filling up the pots with soil and then emptying them again. He also explores the soil by feeling it with his hands and making marks in it. 

You could also add pretend flowers or seeds. I might also add water in the watering can so Hartley can explore what happens to soil when you add water.

Brush Treasure Basket

Hartley still loves his treasure baskets. I thought I would put together a sensory one with just brushes.

I collected brushes we already had from around the house but you could include any brushes you want.

In out treasure basket we put in:

a selection of paint brushes in different sizes

a nail brush

a shaving brush

make up brushes

tooth brush

hair brush

All the brushes are either new or washed so they are safe to use.

I left the treasure basket out so Hartley could play when ever he wanted. He loved exploring the brushes. He often brushed his own skin. He loved how this felt.

Here are some cute pictures  of him brushing his toes.

 He then brushed my toes and we had lots of fun tickling each other with the brushes. This was initiated by him, which made it even more lovely.

Gloop Shape Hunt

I was trying to decide what to do this afternoon with the children I look after, so searched the cupboards and found cornflour, this could only mean one thing - GLOOP!

If you haven't made gloop before you really should, it only needs 2 ingredients

Cornflour and water, you can add food colouring to make it even more fun.

Gloop is a magical mixture which can be both solid and liquid and its lots of fun for children and adults of all ages!

I added some coloured shapes to encourage shape, colour and number recognition. 

The children loved exploring the gloop.

 They felt the gloop with their hands and made marks.

 It was great fun to watch the gloop drip off our hands.

One of the children even decided to put some lentils from another sensory tub into the mixture! I love sensory play!

We also played hunt the shapes. I would ask them to find the red heart or the purple star. This not only encourages shape and colour recognition but is also a good way to get the children to start exploring and touching the gloop.

Sensory play is brilliant for encouraging language. I constantly talk to the children about what they are doing and what it feels like. We came up with some great words.

Slimy, slippery, gloopy. For Hartley and I talk to him about what he is doing and what I think it feels like.