Lorax Themed Sensory Bin

The Lorax has become sort of a big thing around here.

It's always been my favorite Dr. Seuss book, but with all the buzz about the movie, (which we loved, by the way,) and all the crafting and planning for V's birthday party, the book is in constant rotation around here.

I decided to scavenge through my craft stash, to see if I could put together a sensory bin for the kids to reenact the story.

Truffula trees.

The grass and Truffula trees were easy, colored rice and pom poms hot glued to pipe cleaners, (with some extra pom poms as Truffula tufts, and short pipe cleaners as tree stumps.)

Swomee Swans and Bar-ba-loots.

I actually found some wooden bird and bear cut outs lying around here, which I painted to use as Swomee Swans and Bar-ba-loots.

Polymer clay "humming fish."

I was at loss for what to make the humming fish out of, until I remembered I still had some polymer clay lying around. I fabricated a couple of "humming fish," which looked rather like Goldfish crackers.

The Lorax and the Onceler.

I ended up making the Lorax and the Onceler out of little wooden peg blanks. In keeping with my utter lack of painting ability, I kept it simple. They were painted with acrylic paint. I added a mustache and eyebrows to the Lorax made out of wool roving, and covered the Onceler with a layer of "miff muffered moof" made out of wool roving as well. (Ok, I have no idea what miff muffered moof is, but since the Onceler was into the fiber arts, I'm thinking wool roving was probably appropriate.)

Lorax themed sensory bin.

Here's the whole set up. Both kids are having fun with it, repeating the story nearly verbatim.

I belatedly realized that I had forgotten the "unless" rock. I remedied that after I took the picture, with a small rock and a Sharpie.

I may try to come up with some Truffula fruit and some sort of Thneed if the kids maintain this level of interest in the story.

Easter Sensory Bin

Easter themed sensory bin.

I put together a new Easter themed sensory bin for V, even though it's a bit early.

Instead of my usual method of dyeing rice, (food coloring and alcohol,) I used the Kool-Aid dyeing method described in this post at Teach Preschool. I used pink lemonade Kool-Aid, and it resulted in a soft pretty pink color that smelled slightly fruity. (Also, in case you're wondering, the color didn't rub off on our hands.)

I included several packages of Easter themed Erasers, (currently available in the Dollar Spot at Target,) some bunny finger puppets, small plastic eggs, and tiny baskets, (from Hobby Lobby,) and some little Easter themed mazes, (from Dollar Tree.) 


There are several ways to play with this bin. The items in it could be sorted by color or type, or V can just do what she usually does, which is make up some sort of imaginative story about the bunny family's adventures.

V never seems to get tired of playing with these little bins, whether they're super simple like this one, or more elaborate, like some of the other's I've made.

Review: Time Timer

Most of the books I've ever read about ADHD, SPD, and Autism suggest that timers can help kiddos make smoother transitions. We started using one about a year ago, and for us, at least, that seems to be true.We use timers all day here, during school, to monitor screen time, and for things like minutes until bath time.

We were recently sent a 3" Time Timer to review, which retails for $30 from the Time Timer website. The timers are also available in 8" and 12" size for classroom and group use, ($35 and $40 respectively,) and the company additionally sells Time Timer computer software for $24, and has an app available via iTunes for $1.99. 

The timer we received requires one AA battery.

Time Timer.

The Time Timer essentially works like any other, with the addition of a red film that acts as a visual cue, getting smaller as time passes. This means that even children who can't yet tell time, (like 3 year old V,) can monitor it using relative terms. ("I have a little time left." or "I have lots of time left.")

We've been using this timer daily since receiving it. It's easy to use, and lightweight enough to throw in a purse or backpack for use outside the home. (Minutes at the park, the swimming pool, etc.) Although L can read the numbers on a regular timer, he seems to benefit from being able to see time visibly passing. It feels less arbitrary to him, I think.

I do wish the "ding" was a little louder. We have a pretty noisy crew around here, (kids and dogs,) and at times I found myself straining to hear the timer go off when there was lots of background noise.

Based on my own observations, I'd particularly recommend this product to families with special needs, or young children who can't yet tell time. I'm really glad we got to check it out.

Head over to the Homeschool Crew blog to find out what other homeschooling families thought of this product.






Disclosure: I received a Time Timer in order to facilitate this review. No other compensation was provided, and the opinions expressed here are my own.

Halloween Sensory Bin

I put together a Halloween themed sensory bin for the kids this year, and thought I'd share it. There are lots of things to sort, tweeze, and pretend with. V's been playing with it daily, with the addition of a few toy Pokemon, or other little figures, to "rescue" from the "spooky spiders."

Halloween sensory bin.

Here are some of the contents and sources:

Black beans, as the basic filler.

Alphabet pasta, dyed orange.

Halloween erasers, from Target and Dollar Tree.

Halloween pom poms, from Michael's.

Spider rings and plastic spiders, from Dollar Tree.

Plastic eyeballs, from Dollar Tree.

Plastic mini pumpkins, and wooden Halloween themed buttons, from our stash.

Pond Sensory Bin

The kids have been having fun with our pond sensory bin.

Pond sensory bin.

We've used it with and without water. The kids obviously prefer it with water, but even with such a minute amount, my little ones make a pretty big mess. (I've been making them play with the water on the patio.)

Even without water, it's pretty cool.

The contents are as follows:
*blue and clear glass marbles from Dollar Tree
* white "water lilies" from Dollar Tree
*Craft foam lily pads
*Rubber duckies from the $1 section at Michael's
*Rubber frogs from Dollar Tree
*Teeny plastic frogs, turtles, fish from my local party supply store

The First Garden Harvest of 2011 & a Link Round Up

A lonely green bean.

It's almost enough to feed a mouse, as they long as they weren't very hungry.

We actually do have some more green beans that will be ready shortly, a few tiny cucumbers, and a few green tomatoes in the works. The kids like investigating the plants every day or so, to see how things are coming along. V is very much interested in helping mommy plant and water everything. L is considerably less interested, since dirt and mud are generally offensive to his sensory sensitivites. (He did however seem mildly interested when I suggested that I might pay him to help me pull weeds out of the garden this year. Whatever works, right?) 

We're getting a really late start this year, but my husband actually finished tilling the big plot for the garden this year, and hopefully I'll have some pictures to show of it sometime next week.

In the meantime, here are a few gardening links for you and your family:

The Classroom Victory Garden Project, courtesy of the National WWII Museum of New Orleans: History, gardening info, lesson plans, recipes, and more.

Gardening Preschool Pack, from 1+1+1=1

A round up of Montessori themed materials for a gardening unit, as compiled by Living Montessori Now

A huge collection of Montessori themed gardening links from Montessori 21st Century

A crafty garden round up with lots of fun ideas on Craft:

Have any other favorite gardening links? (Yours or anyone else's?) Feel free to link 'em up in the comments.

Bird Themed Sensory Bin

We're starting a unit on birds here, and I put together a little sensory bin, mainly for 2 year old V. The filler is sunflower seed bird feed. I picked up the little nest and the wooden eggs at Hobby Lobby. They had neat little birds constructed of real feathers and styrofoam, but I know my (rough) kids would break them. I settled on these little plush duck cat toys. Throughout the month, I'm going to add other things to it to maintain interest: feathers, other birds, smaller eggs, maybe some felt or pipe cleaner worms.

A Halloween Recap

Mario Pumpkin Stencil, from  http://www.zombiepumpkins.com/

Holidays are tough for kids with SPD.
(Actually, as an adult with some sensory issues, I confess that last night was a lot for me to swallow too. That boy and I are a lot alike. )
L was overwhelmed with the 20ish people in our small house, with the noise, with the chaos that most people would perceive as festive.

Severed finger and spider cupcakes, anyone?

There were several meltdowns about whether or not to wear a costume, to go trick or treating, etc. It must be hard to be a little kid, and feel so conflicted about things that are supposed to be fun. In the end, he wore half a costume, and tearfully went trick or treating of his own accord.  He later reported that he had fun.
V, the polar opposite, was thrilled to get to dress up, thrilled to be the center of attention, excited to tell everyone "Happy Halloween!"
It's hard to know how to provide both kids, who have such different personalities, with what they need at any given moment.
I'm not sure we hit the mark this time. I'm going to be thinking about what we can do to make Christmas easier for L...

V, the self styled "Princess Toadstool," and "Super Mario"

Homeschool Wrap Up: Halloween

This week we did sort of an anything goes Halloween unit. Here are some of our theme related activities:

The kids finger painted some bats. Finger painting is still one of L's least favorite things to do, but we've made some progress in the he will participate, (with some coaxing.) This time, he even seemed to be enjoying himself a little once he got into it.

V, as usual, ended up with at least as much paint on her body as she did the paper. That kid loves paint.

After seeing several Halloween themed sensory bins around the web lately, I constructed this one, full of bugs, and bats, and other "spooky" stuff. After the initial novelty wore off, the kids didn't play with it much. I confess, it didn't seem all that interesting to me either. As they say on Twitter, it was a #fail. I may lay off the sensory bins for a bit, and reintroduce them later.

L spent a good bit of time playing with the ghost games I made last year. (If I could add any info to last year's post, it would be that if you're going to go to the trouble to make something like this, you should definitely laminate them. V kept trying to peel the stickers off.) I'm sorry to say that I didn't save a copy of these last year to pass along. In the future, I'll be sure to.

V had some fun with Halloween stickers. I'm going to call that practicing fine motor skills. ;)

Below you'll find some of the resources we used and enjoyed this week.

Week in Review: Apple Week

This week we learned about one of L's favorite things: apples.

Here are some of the theme related activities we did.


I switched out last week's "pumpkins" for "apples" this week, and the kids continued with the tweezing activitiy.

L worked on an apple themed lacing card. He's gotten so much better at stuff like this. It's awesome.

He practiced writing some apple related words of his choosing.

We did the sort of obligatory apple printing. In the future, I'll be sure to pay a little more attention to what I'm doing. I thought I was pouring tempera paint for the kids, but it was acrylic paint. Oops. They made quite a mess. I was able to salvage everything except V's beloved Kai Lan shirt.

We ate lots of apple products. L is shown below, happily eating apple slices, apple Cheerios (yes, I know, that one was a stretch,) dehydrated apples, and drinking apple juice.

I made homemade apple scented play doh, as shown in the top picture. I must have done something wrong though. Although it smelled good, the texture was way off, nearly impossible to knead. I'm putting the home made play doh in the craft fail category.

I saw this post at Welcome to Our Wonderland, and borrowed her idea for the apple scented sensory tub. I put oatmeal, cinnamin, some small sand toys I found on clearance at Target a couple of weeks ago, and some teeny fimo clay apples in it. V's had a lot of fun making "pies" and making messes.

L and I spent lots of time reading. By the end of the week, he was able to read a good bit of Ten Apples Up on Top to me, which was pretty exciting for both of us.

To be honest, we've been a little lopsided here lately, very heavy on the reading, and pretty light on most of the other stuff. I'm trying to keep the momentum going though. He's excited about reading more and more, and for now, I'm going to roll with that.

Below are some of the resources we used and enjoyed this week.

Fall Themed Sensory Bin

Here's our newest sensory bin.

The theme for this one is fall. I picked up the package of fabric leaves at Dollar Tree, and while they were initially pretty crunched up, a few minutes with the iron on on a low setting left them looking much better. The little plastic acorns and pumpkins also came from Dollar Tree. (I picked up several packages of each, and will additionally using them as math manipulatives this month.)
I added some Little People and Little People animals we already had, and there you go, a little farm in the fall.
The kids can search for the acorns and pumpkins, pretend to rain leaves down on the "farm," or just free play with it.

Transportation Unit: Week 1 Airplanes & Helicopters

I hope I didn't scare you all away with my previous post. :) I promise I'll stay off my soap box for a while.
This week was supposed to all about airplanes and helicopters, but as I explained the other day, the week was sort of derailed by outside events. Here's a quick round up of the theme related things we did manage to do, as well as a few of the resources that we used.

L practiced drawing helicopters and other forms of transportation.

We did lots of puzzles. L did this one with his daddy.

I put out some transportation themed activities for the kids do do during free time.

Here's the close up of the "construction site"  themed sensory bin.

Next week we're going to be learning to learning about trucks.

Solar System Sensory Bin

To go along with this month's Space theme, I put together this sensory bin for the kids.

I referred to a poster we have of the solar system to come up with rough approximations of the sun, the moon, and the planets in Fimo clay. "Space" is represented here with black marbles. They're cold and smooth to the touch.

Finally, I was brainstorming about how to come up with some astronauts and space shuttles, when I found a pack of space themed erasers at my local Dollar Tree. Perfect!

Easy Sensory Bins for Little Ones

The kids are still really into the sensory bins I've set up for them. For this week's WFMW post, I thought I'd show and tell about a few of the ones they've been playing with recently.





First off, there's this one, filled with dried split peas, Playmobil toys, and teeny plastic animals. It's fun to find all of the animals, or just to set up a little farm. The peas feel neat to run your hands through. This has been one of V's favorite variations of this idea so far.



This one is a bit more challenging. The idea here is to go on a "treasure hunt," and find all the polished stones from among the mixed beans. It's harder than it looks. (I used my old childhood rock collection for this one. If you didn't have rocks, you could also do something similar with beads.)

Cheap, easy, unplugged ways to entertain the kids works for me. For more WFMW posts, check out www.wearethatfamily.com.

Linked to Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts.

Sensory Box Variations: Gardening and Bugs

Here are some recent variations on our sensory box. First we had this one,in a gardening theme, filled with Play Mobil people, dogs, bunnies, and vegetables.

After that, I switched over to a bug theme, with these dollar store bugs, although I'm going to be on the lookout for some smaller bugs, which would be more fun to hide and find.



As simple as it seems, the kids don't seem to tire of this idea.

Ocean Themed Sensory Box

I put together this sensory box for the kids recently, to go along with the ocean unit study we've been working on for several weeks. I dyed the rice blue, put it in a large, lidded container from Dollar Tree, threw in three packages of Dollar Tree sea creatures, (fish, sea stars, and crabs and lobsters,) a couple of shells, and a few Play Mobil mermaids.
Seriously, I've been really surprised how much the kids have played with this. They ask for it daily. They like to bury and find the animals, they use the shells as scoops, and we've been playing informal little games, like "find something that's purple," or "find a crab."

I've made several other versions of this which I'll be posting about later.