There's a couple boards on Pinterest I'm subscribed too and on a particular one, these sensory, heuristic "Treasure Baskets" will pop up every once in a while. I've always said, "Yea..I should put one together for Luna!" Then I never do. Not anymore, though! I actually did today.
There is an awesome blog for this kind of thing: The Imagination Tree. I followed the guidelines in this post. Basically, you get a bunch of baby-friendly (and safe!) things from around the house and put them in a basket and let the baby guide the play. The only catch about what you put in the basket: no plastic. This can be harder than you think. I've come to realize how little natural objects I have just laying around the house. (Well, baby safe objects at least.)
Here's what I came up with...from left to right, top to bottom: a wooden pig (part of a little instrument), an old tin from some cookies, a crocheted alligator (made by Mr. 246!), a little drum, a glass jar with some keys in it (lid put on tight - she's not so advanced to take that off yet), a sewn pegasus I made last year, a maraca, empty toilet paper rolls, a coffee tin with some metal jar lids inside, a wooden train whistle, a small crocheted circle leftover.
So, all I had to do is put it all in a container and let Luna Bean at it. Mostly a baby led activity and you let them discover what's inside for themselves. For reference, Luna is about a week away from being 8 months. (Disclaimer: if you make a sensory basket, please be sure supervise the fun. Babies have a knack for taking really simple objects and somehow turning them into dangerous, pro baby-injury objects. It's part of their creativity I suppose.) Here's some action shots:
She of course had to take a break to pet the soft blankie: (Part of the fun!)
The winner of the sensory play items was the coffee tin with metal lids inside (like the kind of spaghetti jars and things like that). She loved the noise, and she loved taking the lids and just manipulating them in her hands.
And of course, she's into these toys all day, then when I decide to have a photoshoot, the camera is waaaaay more interesting, she kept coming over to try to get it from me. (Side note: she started crawling exactly a week ago!)
And of course, you can always put the baby in the basket. She loved that as well and it was so freaking cute.
But that's not all for today's sensory play extravaganza! We had made some sketti noodles and let her have a go at it. I over cooked them so if she put them in her mouth then it wouldn't be too much of an issue, but baby girl didn't really even realize it was food and never once tried to put them in her mouth. I was very surprised. I couldn't really tell if she liked this activity or if she was just really interesting/confused.
I've also seen online that you can put food coloring in the spaghetti for a whole different experience but I opted out of that today and I didn't really want to deal with colored baby fingers. And again, please supervise carefully (unless your kid is old enough to eat spaghetti I guess). There are a ton of ideas at The Imagination Tree for babies and toddlers for this kind of stuff. I've already pinned a bunch of activities for when she's older. I'm just so excited that she's at an age now where we can start doing neato stuff like this. I absolutely love watching how her mind works. You can practically see the little gears turning in their heads! I have to keep looking and figure out what we're going to do next!
- Ms. 246
P.S. Please forgive the spacing issues with the pictures/text in this post. Blogger seems to be giving me a chance to practice my patience today. Well Blogger, you win! Because I give up and don't understand you half the time! ;)
Great post...I need to check out the imagination tree for my 9 month and 2 yr old! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks! There would be a lot there for them...especially the two year old. :)
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