Tuff Tray Tuesday – 9 October

For today’s Tuff Tray Tuesday I went with a very simple activity- rainbow died oats. These are very simple to make using just 3 ingredients- oats (I used the porridge oats we had in the house, but it would have worked better with whole rolled oats instead), water and food colouring. You can also use liquid watercolours to dye the oats, but I cannot because C still tastes everything!

You to dye the oats, I mixed 1.5 tablespoons of water with food colouring- more than I thought I would as I wanted the colours to be quite strong and vibrant. I then added oats and mixed them in so that they were covered in the water/food colouring mixture. I didn’t have any specific amount of oats, just enough to soak up all the dye. In retrospect I should have added more oats to the blue mix as it was too damp to be used today. I then poured the dyed oats onto kitchen towel and left them to dry overnight.

C was quite interested in the kitchen towel this morning when I showed her.

The oats looked amazing lined up ready to be played with this morning.

I set up the Tuff Tray with some cups, containers and utensils from C’s play kitchen, together with a large plastic cup and funnel and the rainbow oats.

C was initially most interested in playing with just the utensils, but then she started to scoop up the oats with the spoon. Soon she was using all the different containers and utensils to stir, scoop, pour and dump the rainbow oats until they were all mixed and looked like confetti. The funnel did not work-I think it was because the oats weren’t quite dry.

C really enjoyed this, but only for about 15 minutes. It was great for her playing independently, but I think she would have played with it for longer if her brother had been playing with it too.

We will play with them again. Next time I may add in the blue oats.

Baby sensory play- a box of bangles

Inspired by a post on Instagram where someone set up an activity for their toddler playing with bangles and a mug tree, I dug out some of my bangles that I haven’t worn since having the children. I put the bangles in one of those boxes from Ikea- they are the canvas drawer divider things- that I wasn’t using and just put them in front of C.

There were different size bangles in there, some very thin, some much thicker. Some wooden bangles, most were metal, and there was a silicon/rubber bangle in there. C loved them!

She liked the jingly noise they made in the box, and especially when she dropped them on the floor, and she really liked putting them on her arms and feet. She put them on individually and then tried putting as many as she could fit into one arm or one foot. Then she wandered around the room trying to give the box a cuddle!

The box of bangles kept her busy for about 10 mins, which is quite a while for C, and she has gone back to them time and time again since. Her brother also had a good play with them when he got back from school. A definite hit in our house, and I haven’t yet taken the bangles back- well it’s not like I was wearing them before the children started playing with them!

Digging in the mud- an Easter themed sensory activity

This was such a fun activity to do on a wet bank holiday.

Over the summer I saw on Pinterest a sensory activity to do with dinosaur obsessed children-setting up edible mud and playing with the dinosaurs in the mud, burying them and digging them up. My son had loved this activity and made me bury the dinosaurs several times over. Then a couple of weeks ago I was in the supermarket and saw a packet of sweetie carrots and it got me thinking about this mud digging activity. So I got a packet of Malteaster Bunnies and also found some Jelly Babies Chicks.

To make the “mud” I used an entire packet of cornflower, 2 table spoons of cocoa and about 6 tablespoons of water. I mixed them together in a plastic tub and then added the bunnies, chicks and carrots and hid them in the mud. The mud mixture actually had a realistic, gloopy texture. A bit like quicksand. So the sweets sank right into the mud, and it took a bit of work to dig them out.

Both children really liked this activity. My son, who has never been keen on getting his hands dirty (there was never any finger painting with him when he was tiny) used tools like tweezers, a teaspoon and a scooper to get the sweets out, and only right at the end, after a lot of encouragement and me getting my hands in there, he used his hands. He loved digging the sweets out and he then loved sinking all of the tools he had used and trying to find them. It kept him busy for a good half hour, which is good for an activity like this.

My daughter, on the other hand, loved getting her hand right in there, and she shoved quite a lot in her mouth, which I didn’t mind as it was taste safe. She actually had a go at crawling into the mud herself! I did stop her playing after about 15 mins as I didn’t want her to eat too much of the cornflower and cocoa mixture and make herself sick. She would have carried on for ages.

This activity also gave me a really good chance to try out our new Tuff Tray that we got the other day. It was so good at containing he mess and took only a few minutes to clean up, where it would have taken ages to do before. I highly recommend one if you like messy play activities with your children, but don’t like the mess!