Andrea

Miss O absolutely loved her Valentine’s Day sensory bin. She sorted and organized her little heart out. Knowing how much she loved it, I didn’t change it too much for St. Patrick’s Day. At this point I still only have white navy beans as filler. One of these days I’ll get around to colouring some pasta and some rice. Miss O loves sorting. She sorts everything from blocks to crayons to her Multigrain Cheerios. She also loves buckets. She likes carrying them around by the handle and sorting her toy of choice into the bucket. Although I added a few different items, I think she gets the most enjoyment out of numerous types of small items being buried in the bin for her to search around for and sort into different containers. Majority of my items were purchased at the dollar store or were items I had on-hand.

Items in Sensory Bin

• green cups
• rainbow bucket
• small scoop
• large foam shamrock shapes
• gold coins (mine are actually green, thank you dollar store!)
• green porcupine balls
• squishy foam shamrock shapes
• beaded necklaces
• rainbow assortment of buttons

 Holly

Go big or go home. I took a risk on this one, and no, it didn’t really turn out how I thought.

It started innocently enough for a little bucket of water beads.

We hadn’t used water beads before and Mr J really enjoyed watching them grow up from the tiny tiny package of seed beads. You can imagine my absolute delight when my busy boy was so entranced with these beads that he sat quietly playing with them on the kitchen floor. I made dinner around him and enjoyed the quiet. It was a blissful 30 minutes. (Now if I only could get him to do this while I’m on the phone!, I thought).

It went so well, I decided I would add them into our sensory bin downstairs. This was a bit of a risk because:
(a) the bin sits on our train table that is made of wood – if it gets wet & doesn’t get cleaned up, it’s toast
(b) I wasn’t sure how it would be reacted to when both Miss M & Mr J were splashing it in

So somehow we got from that little innocent cutie, to well, this…

Yes. He told me loudly he was swimming – kick kick kick Mommy, just like the pool. Maybe the leprechaun made him do it?

(I believe there are moments where you just have to believe someone upstairs has a sense of humour. This was one of them. I tried hard not to laugh and to encourage him but it was impossible. Kids are funny sometimes, these little moments of silly are the ones that always stick with me. I try to remember them on those really trying days.)

My favourite part was throughout his little swim, Miss M just kept playing and dumping the beads around him! She was focused.

They worked together on the filling and dumping, stuck their hands into the beads and squished them around. The texture of beads is similar to a jello circle or a bath bead. You squeeze too hard and they will break but it takes a lot of force.

Items in Sensory Bin

• Water Beads (green)
• Water
• Recycled Water Cup
• Spoons
• Measuring Cups

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Looking for a sweet treat to enjoy this St. Patrick’s Day? Try Rainbow Pot of Gold Cupcakes.