I somehow stumbled on the concept of
sensory bins. I remember my preschool had a huge one, filled with cornmeal. I always thought these were supposed to be indoor sandboxes, but I guess they have their own special term and purpose. I like the idea of having calming activities and something quick and
interesting to keep little ones occupied. So I've thrown some super simple bins together in the last few days...
The pasta above makes quite the noise! Lula loves to move her hands around and make the pasta rattle. The older kids, when I choose to include them, can string pasta on pipe cleaners (renamed chenille stems in this PC time).
The pinto beans above were put together in a second while I was trying to make dinner last night. Lula kept getting into things, so I figured I would save more time with sweeping up beans after dinner prep than constantly stopping to get Lula out of mischief. And I was right. Lula happily sat on that stool scooping and dumping beans for a good 20 minutes! Of course she has the ability/personality that allows her to sit and focus quietly on an activity...I've had other kids that would take one look at that box and dump it straight on the floor, just so he could hear what noise it makes.
The split pea bin was one I had planned on setting up for Daniel on St. Patrick's Day. I have buckets and buckets of dried beans in my emergency food storage, so I was happy to rotate the older stock out.
Fiona helped me cut up a gold shamrock necklace from the dollar bin for this one. The gold shamrocks slowly rose to the surface as Lula scooped and poured with the gold cups I described in
this post. I have tons of ideas that I may (or may not) execute, because remember? My new year's resolution is to not set myself up for failure. But I have this cute mini eraser set in the shape of sushi that my Japanese friend gave me...and wouldn't it be fun to sift through white rice with a pair of chopsticks during our next unit on Japan?
