Puffy Paint

Mix shaving cream with a glob of elmer's glue to make puffy paint. It dries too (takes a while). You can add a little paint or food coloring to it to color it, or leave it white and use colored paper. Try practicing writing letters, or just smush it. It has a really unique texture.

Bonus: its easy to clean up!

Snow mess!

This was a GIANT mess but Levi had fun!
We got something in the mail packed in peanuts (the foam kind, unfortunatly), and Levi broke them into bits and spread them around the kitchen. This kept him entertained for a while!
We used it as a life skill practice though, clean up after yourself! It was a challange for him to use his brush and pan to sweep all this up, but it was his mess, so his clean up (yes, I did help some!)

Finger Paint

Finger Paint
3 cups water
1 cup cornstarch
your choice of coloring (small amount of kid paint, food coloring, koolaid packet)

Mix in a saucpan and cook over medium heat until thick. Add more water if you want to. Add color and allow to cool

Adventure walk

When you're two, and adventure walk can be anywhere! We just walked around the block with the dog, and brought along a zip-lock bag to collect treasures. Walks can be an oppertunity to talk about all sorts of things - the neighborhood, the weather, different things you can hear (wind, birds, leaves, people), etc. We also say 'hi' to the neighbors and somtimes get to stop and play with friends!

The five senses: Touch

First.... a shot of my messy boy!

Various slimes/goops/dough is great for experencing the sense of touch.

Gluten Free Playdough:

1/2 cup rice flour (you can use regular flour instead)

1/2 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup salt

2tsp cream of tarter

1 TBS oil

1 cup of water

Cook in a saucepan on medium until it forms a ball, let cool and kneed

Another dough:

1 cup cornstarch

2 cups baking soda

1.5 cups water

cook until it looks like mashed potatoes, let cool, kneed. This can also be rolled thin and baked in a cool oven for an hour or so to make things like ornaments. Has a different texture than most playdough.

Gak (pictured)

8oz of elmers glue

1/2 cup water

1tsp of borax

Mix water and borax, add glue and stir/kneed well. pour off extra liquid.

Oobleck

cornstarch

water

start with a bunch of cornstarch, slowly add water stirring as you go (it will end up about 1/2 water, 1/2 cornstarch), when you stirr slow it will feel like liquid, but if you move fast, its like a solid!

Here is Landis and Levi fingerpainting! Great for both touch and sight (and a mess)

Finger paint:

3 cups water

1 cup cornstarch

Put in a saucepan on medium heat, bring to a simmer and cook until thickened (it will thicken more as it cools, add water as nessisary and stir often while it cools), color as disired (food coloring, kool-aid packet, add a little bit of kid friendly paint...)

Sensory box ideas:

- shredded paper (Levi likes this one!)

- sand

- moon sand

- lentils

- beans

- coffee grounds

- dirt/mud

- ice

- water

- packing peanuts (use the cornstarch ones only, not the styrafoam)

- buttons

- leaves

- rice (you can color it if you want)

- pasta

- shaving cream

- straws cut into small lengths

- bird seed

- polymer crystals and water (from the garden store)

Pumpkins - a sensory experience

Sensory activities encourage exploration, and pumpkin guts are a great sensory experience!

Levi was totally grossed out (see the pic for the face he made!) when we first opened the pumpkin, he didn't know what to think of the mess he discovered inside. At first he was reluctant to touch anything, and just used a spoon to scoop the seeds out (which we later toasted, and are still eating them!). Later he decided it would be fun to ‘jump in guts’, but he never did want to use his hands.

He also smelled the pumpkin - 'it smells yucky!' according to Levi.

And later he tasted the pumpkin, one was cooked and made into pumpkin muffins - those he loved!