Sensory seekers unite!

Is your little dude or dudette a sensory seeker? Mine is! He will spend about 10 times as long playing with a container of beans than with any other toy. And, the good news, most sensory play items are about 10 times cheaper than other toys! Some are even made with things you have around the house (double win)! So, since we are headed into fall/winter and lots of indoor time, I decided to share some of the things that have worked for us. Now, keep in mind, these activities are not necessarily clean and neat. There will be rocks and beans under your sofa. You might find yourself stepping on a water bead at some point. But, it is worth it to me to have my kiddo occupied for a bit. Also, these items are all pretty small, so please be careful if your kiddo is still putting things in their mouths. Some are definitely a choking hazard!

Now, keep in mind that I am not that mom that has it all together and does complicated crafts during nap time. Nothing against those moms. I wish sometimes I had that in me. But, I don't. I have minimal art skills and sometimes just need to spend nap time watching crappy television. It is what gets me though the day. So, these are all pretty easy ideas.

Hands down, my son's absolute favorite play item this summer has been these rocks. I got them at the Dollar Store in the craft/flower area. The amount here is three bags worth of rocks and I also got the container there. It is a dish washing container. So, for $4, I got something that he can play with for tens of minutes (which is a good amount of time for him). You can only imagine my husbands look when I said I bought rocks though. Yes, I do realize that rocks are free outside. But, these rocks are clean and bug-free. And, since they end up all over my house, this is worth it. He will scoop these rocks into his truck (see below) or any dump truck, he will dump them on his head, he will sit in them, he will "cook" with them in his kitchen, he will just run his hands through them, he will "count" them, he will find certain rocks that look different. So, there is a ton you can do with them and I am sure your kiddos will find new and different ways to play!

Next, we have beans. These have been a huge hit for about 7 months now. They are a "special" toy since they do make an enormous mess. He ends up kind of throwing them at the end and hearing the noise they make as they scatter all over our house. But, we use his construction trucks and push, fill and dump the beans. He hides his animals and then finds them. He scoops the beans with different spoons and fills other items and then pours them out. I think this was a larger bag of beans, so probably around $5 for the bunch. We have also done rice, lentils and other items in our pantry that expire or we won't use in time.

Sorry for the bad picture, but I had these picked up and didn't want them out again. This is an idea we got from our speech therapist. These are little black rocks that are found at the Dollar Store and are in the craft/flower area. The monster trucks are also from the Dollar Store and come in a pack of 4. So, again, about $3 with a bin for this sensory activity. My son loves playing with these stones and running the trucks over them. But, he also LOVES monster trucks, so that helps. These do get everywhere and the black does come off a bit on hands.

It seems like the sensory activity of the year are these water beads. They are especially great for my son because he has some issues with wet feeling items. He hates them and it is really causing some issues with food (like strawberries, grapes, or anything that may feel a bit wet). So, we try to do these fairly often. There are a million different brands of water beads. I got mine from Amazon and they were $7 for about a million beads (4,000). You can see from the bag that they last forever. I have already made these 3 times before and the bag is still really full. They start as tiny beads and you put them in water for about 6-8 hours with a ton of water. They grow and grow and become awesome. Make sure you don't just dump the bag in. The picture below is about a tablespoon of the beads. These are great for just touching and pinching (if you are introducing new sensory items). My son also loves scooping them, having his trucks run through them, watching them bounce (and they do really bounce into all corner of your house), picking different colors, seeing the different sizes, squishing them so they break, etc. They are super fun and cheap. I usually keep them in a bag after rinsing them off to get all the dog hair and dust off of them after they have rolled all over our floors. I keep them for about a week with some water and then trash and start again.

Homemade Kinetic sand is something we are just trying out. My son LOVES playing in sand in the sandbox, so I wanted to try this to see how he liked it. This type of sand sticks together better but does stick to your hands more than sandbox sand. To make it you combine: 5 cups of sand, 1.2 cups corn starch (approx. 1 cup + 3 tablespoons), 1/2 teaspoon dish soap (e.g. Dawn Dishwashing Liquid), about 1 cup of water and optionally 1 teaspoon Tea Tree Oil for antibacterial properties. I got my recipe here. My son currently hates the feel of this sand since it sticks to his hands, but he loves making structures out of it. He likes how the sandcastles come out as sandcastles (we have a mold from the Dollar Store). He loves breaking up the things he builds too since they come apart slowly. And, it is cheap and I had all the stuff for it, so that is pretty hard to beat really.

That's about it. As promised, they are all cheap and easy to make and should keep your kiddo busy for a bit. Plus, they are really good for them developmentally. I know our speech therapist and OT recommended many of them. So, when the snow starts flying this year, give one (or more) of them a shot!