If your child loves toy cars and busses (what child doesn't?) a sensory toy car wash with shaving cream will help develop their tolerance for uncomfortable sensations like touching things that are messy or sticky.

Sensory Car Wash Instructions

Just like the bubble bath car wash or the exploding toy car wash, setting up this sensory car wash activity is easy!

Materials:

Large tray, such as a baking sheet. You could also use a large rectangle storage bin, or do this on the floor on a shower curtain or outside in a kiddie pool.

Shaving cream. Aerosol shaving cream is best.

Toy cars and trucks, etc. You can tailor the toys to suit your child's interest. For example, toy animals or even foam letters or shapes will work

Towel or waterproof mat to protect your work surface (optional)

MORE: 20 ways to play with toy cars

Set-up

Place the toy vehicles on the tray. Cover the tray and all of the toys with shaving cream. Don't be stingy!

Our experience:

I put shaving cream on an old baking sheet and hid toy cars in mounds of shaving cream and told my son it was a "CAR WASH".

I also gave him a spray bottle and fingernail brush to emphasize the "washing" part of the activity. The only way his cars were going to get clean was if he performed the duty himself!

At first, he was a tiny bit hesitant, but his dad sat down with him and demonstrated how to retrieve and wash the cars and even to drive them around making tracks.

In fact, driving the cars and making tracks turned out to be more fun than the act of washing the vehicles!

It ended up providing at least 45 minutes of fun!

Variation: Use the shaving cream and cars for some imaginative play inspired by the book, Katy and the Big Snow.

The post Shaving Cream Sensory Play Idea: Car Wash appeared first on What Do We Do All Day.

As creative as all those sensory bin ideas are, however, sometimes simple is best. Or rather, lazy is best. Because lazy is what I was when I came across a small container of rice mixed with letters and numbers in the closet. It had been sitting in there since my son used it to play the Sift -n-Spell game.

Why a "mini" bin?

My 5 year old loves to run his hand through the rice, looking for letters (making an impromptu alphabet learning activity!), telling me what he finds and spilling a little on the floor (just being honest).

I love sensory bins because they keep him busy and I appreciate a mini bin because it means less rice to vacuum up.

Not only that, mini bins are very portable. If you use a simple plastic food container, like we did here, you can pop a lid on it so take with you, or save for later.

Ideas for mini sensory bins

You can turn any sensory bin or sensory tray into a mini version of itself. Just use a smaller container and fewer add-in items. Here are some sensory bin ideas you can draw on:

• Bubble bath toy car wash
• Shaving cream sensory car wash tray
• Digger toy and bean sensory tray
• Alphabet rice sensory bin
• Toy vehicle rice sensory bin

If you really, really don't want a sensory bin that creates a mess, perhaps I can convince you that it's okay to let your kids make big giant messes.

Still not sure why you should give your kids a sensory bin? Read this.

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My child's favorite toys are his toy vehicles of all sorts. Cars, busses, trucks, trains, diggers. If it has wheels, he loves it. It's a common favorite toy and a sensory tray with toy cars is a great distraction activity for toddlers and preschoolers.

What is a sensory tray?

A sensory tray is a tray, like a baking pan or large shallow bucket, filled with a medium that provides a unique sensory experience. It can be rice, sand, beans, shredded paper, etc. The list is endless. A sand-box is essentially a giant sensory tray.

Your child can play in the sensory tray with items like sifting tools or digging implements, but for extra fun, toys are a great addition to any sensory tray experience.

How to Make a Toy Car Sensory Tray

Once you understand how a sensory tray works, you can put together your own to suit the unique interests of your child.

What you need:

Large tray. We used a cookie sheet that had a lip to it.

Sensory material. We used rice because I had a big bag that was so old it would have taken ages to cook and soften. If you don't like using food stuffs, there are many other materials to choose from.

You'll want to be careful to use a medium that is appropriate for your child's age. For children under 3, avoid items they could choke on. Always supervise your children during this activity.

Toys. In case you missed it the first dozen times, we used toy vehicles. Other ideas include toy animals, blocks, small dolls, etc.

Instructions

Pour the sensory material onto the tray. For toy vehicles, it was nice to have only a think layer of rice. That way, driving the car along the tray created paths and roads.

If you are worried about mess, don't be. However, if it so happens that you don't want rice all over the place, place tray on the table or other work surface covered with paper, towel or sheet.

As you can see from the photo below, it may or may not be effective. But you probably own a broom, so no big deal.

For the final step, let the kids explore the items in the sensory tray however they want!

Originally published 2011, updated 2023.

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Note: this post contains affiliate links. Qualifying purchases may earn commission.

How to Make an Alphabet Sensory Bin

We reused our materials from the Sift 'n' Spell spelling game to easily put together an activity that makes learning the alphabet fun.

Materials

Sensory material. Use rice, dried barley, macaroni pasta shapes, dried beans or lentils.

Container. This should be large enough to hold a multitude of letters.

Letters. What can you use for letters? If you have an alphabet puzzle, repurpose the pieces, otherwise, you can write the letters on small pieces of cardboard (a cereal box is perfect for this), or index cards (cut them in quarters).

We used small plastic letters like these and foam letters, but it's definitely not necessary to purchase any special materials.

MORE: Fun ABC activities for kids

Instructions

Teacher or Parent Input

While it's perfectly fine to allow your child to engage in supervised play using the letter sensory bin without your input, this is a good opportunity make observations that reinforce the concepts your child is learning.

Comments you can make include the following:

For children who are starting to spell or read:

What age is the alphabet sensory bin for?

Sensory bins with small objects like plastic letters are for ages 3 and up (children must have stopped putting items in their mouths).

It's easy to level up the bin for children starting to work on phonics, reading and spelling skills. Just make sure you include enough letters for word formation.

Even if your young children get carried away, don't avoid this activity because you are afraid of a mess!

9 More Alphabet Sensory Bin Ideas

It's easy to add variety to your sensory bins so that each time your child includes it in their learning play, it's a unique experience. Try one of the following ideas:

• Add numbers to the bin.

• Use both lowercase and uppercase letters.

• Add in surprises like small toy figurines.

• Use a large baking dish, and include a toy digger to dig for the letters. See how we made a digger bean tray here.

• Instead of a dried sensory material, use shaving cream or a bubble bath.

• Freeze letters in ice, like we did in our frozen word scramble.

• Use alphabet pieces from a wooden alphabet peg puzzle. After retrieving each piece, place in the correct spot on the puzzle. Your child will know he's found all the letters when the puzzle is complete!

• If you're not afraid of mess, try a Jell-O letter hunt!

• If your sensory material is fine enough, use a berry basket to sift through the material to find the letters. See how this works with sand as the sensory material.

MORE: Picture Books that Instill of Love of Word Play

First published 2010, updated 2023.

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Playing with snow indoors is a great indoor winter nature activity and is easier and less messy than you think.

Playing with Snow Indoors

We recently had a snowstorm that dropped 10 inches of snow! However, the weather was still very gusty with severe wind chill temperatures so I didn't want to take a 4 year old and a baby outdoors. However, if you didn't have a big snowfall, you can always make it look like you did with a DIY snowflake "stained glass" window!

What you need

Snow! Of course!

Mittens, in case your child's hands get cold

Waterproof mat

Towel, for clean up

Instructions

Place the waterproof mat on your play area. We used an large piece of a shower curtain that I had cut up. I secured it to the table with large binder clips.

Bravely open the front door and fill a bucket or your food containers with snow. Bring the snow inside and place the containers on the mat.

Now is the easy part! Let your child explore playing with the snow using the kitchen items. Yes, the snow will begin to melt, but that's okay. Rest easy, knowing that it melts into water, easy to clean up with a towel.

My son loved making snow muffins by using an ice cream scoop to ladle the snow into a muffin tin. (Do you call a silicon muffin pan a "tin"? I doubt it.)

Idea first published 2009, updated 2023.

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We've had several sessions of playing with snow indoors over the years, and by far the favorite is a sensory snow tray traffic jam! Because any time you can add toy vehicles to an activity, it's sure to be a hit! 

I scooped up some snow from the fire escape, brought it inside and spread it out on baking sheets. The boys created a snowy world for their transportation.

The trucks with plows or scoopers saw a lot of action! Be sure to set towels down, but don't worry, it's just water so clean up is easy.

(In order to make you feel good about your own laundry skills I used the grungiest towels I could find for this photo.)

If you don't have snow where you live, you can still recreated this activity. Try a rice sensory tray with cars, a shaving cream traffic jam, or an exploding car wash.

If for some reason, toy vehicles aren't your child's thing, you can use toy animals or blocks. However, sometimes you only need a few items for your kitchen. My son had a great time making snow muffins!

They look yummy, right? Best of all, they are no-bake muffins.

MORE: 18 Snow Day Activities for Kids

Benefits of indoor snow play

This indoor snow play is beneficial for kids!

Free: no fee for the white stuff!

Sensory Exploration: snow is cold and wet!

Observation of Nature: snow melts into water when you bring it inside.

Parent-free Entertainment: I love to enjoy my morning tea in peace with just a little background noise, don't you?

Teaches Responsibility: kids can clean it up themselves.

Of course every indoor snow activity needs a little reading time, wouldn't you agree? Take a peek at our favorite snow books for kids.

The post Indoor Snow Play: A Winter Sensory Activity for Kids appeared first on What Do We Do All Day.

Katy and the Big Snow Activity

One of our favorite books to read during the winter months is Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton. Although Burton is probably more well known for The Little House and Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel, Katy is our personal favorite.

Katy is a spunky red crawler tractor. In the summer, she's a bulldozer, and in the winter, she a snowplow. Katy loves her job. In fact, "the harder and tougher the job the better she liked it."

One winter morning, snow begins to fall, and it soon becomes very apparent that the storm has no intention of stopping and that this is "the big snow." Katy is sent out to do her magic, and it's a good thing because pretty soon the entire City of Geoppolis grinds to a halt. Everything is closed and no one else can do their jobs because the roads are impassable. Katy methodically plows her way through the city until Geoppolis is running smoothly again.

One of our favorite spreads in the book is the map of Geoppolis. All of the buildings are numbered, and then, along the perimeter of the page, there's a closeup of each labeled building. It's one of those pictures you really have to stop and study for at least five minutes before moving on.

That picture was the inspiration for this fun, sensory-related extension activity. We decided to make our own city with various types of "snow" that Katy could dig her way out of.

We started with a big yellow poster board (the map of Geoppolis is yellow, so it seemed like an appropriate color). I let my 7-year-old take a straight edge and pencil and map out the roads.

Meanwhile, my five-year-old and four-year-old began creating houses and buildings out of construction paper (and eventually, after the roads were permanently preserved in black Sharpie, the seven-year-old joined them). They made multicolored houses, apartment buildings, a fire station, a school, and a park.

Then they arranged them in the empty squares and glued them in place.

It was then time to deliberate the name of our city. Everyone made a suggestion, and we eventually settled on Lemonopolis, chosen because of the yellow color of the roads and our wish to pay tribute to the book (although my five-year-old really wanted Amperville because we had just finished reading Ragweed aloud, and that's the name of the city in the story).

We took it to the copy store and had the whole thing laminated to protect their handiwork because things were about to get messy!

We let it "snow" on Lemonopolis, and our very own Katy came and plowed the streets.

The first snowfall bore a striking resemblance to salt. It was fine and gritty and scooped up beautifully into piles. (It also drifted around the kitchen quite easily, and I was stepping on tiny grains for quite awhile after--just warning you.)

The next snowfall looked more like flour. Although we do a fair amount of baking at our house, I don't think my kids had ever really had the opportunity to touch flour. They loved it. It was soft and powdery and delightful to push around, either with their cars or their hands. By the end, they looked like little snowmen themselves.

Our next storm brought in real snow, which we happened to still have sitting around in the backyard. Their playtime with it was cut a little short because it froze their hands and melted in puddles, but it felt very authentic.

And finally, there was a shaving cream snowfall. Katy met her match with this one. It was goopy and squishy and clumped itself around her. My kids quickly abandoned her in favor of just scooping it up with their hands and smearing it around on the mat.

This has been the activity that just keeps on giving. My kids have been jointly invested in this project, exercising their creativity and making plans and playing together. The sensory experience of playing with the different types of "snow" has made the whole thing very real and tactile. It has brought the story of Katy to life for them. We just keep thinking of new elements in which to test Katy's prowess (rice next? or sand?). Instead of just helping us through one afternoon, it has gotten us through several weeks of winter.

I will admit that the thought crossed my mind several times that this would be a fun summer activity. You know, in the grass where the cleanup would be a snap. In some ways, that would defeat the purpose since it makes sense to act out a story about snow in the wintertime, but in other ways, it would be perfect. You could even just create your city with chalk on the driveway and bring in other types of disasters--maybe a mudslide or a leaf storm. The possibilities are endless.

I would love to hear about other sensory activities you've done with your kids. And also, what is your favorite book by Virginia Lee Burton?

Be sure to visit some of Amy's other posts!

On Sunlit Pages:

• How to make a home library
• Reading Farmer Boy
• 5 things I started doing in 2015 that changed my life for the better
• How to read more (without neglecting your children)

On this blog:

• Developing a love of audiobooks
• How to memorize poetry with kids
• Giant hug book and craft

Amy is an avid reader and the mother of four rambunctious boys. Her life goal is to make them as obsessed with books as she is. (Judging from the dozens of books scattered all over her house, she has been successful so far.) She blogs at Sunlit Pages where she writes about a variety of books – from what she is currently reading to her kids’ favorite picture books.

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... which is why I decided for once and for all it was time to whip up a batch of slime.

With superheroes, of course.

(Note: I received a review copy of this book; all opinions are my own. Affiliate links are included.)

When it comes to slime, there is no better place to look than Asia Citro's new book, 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids: The Very Best and Easiest Playtime Activities from FunAtHomeWithKids.com!

Asia's book is  an amazing and diverse collection of every kind of sensory recipe you can think of, from glow in the dark doughs to flax seed goops to slimes. I am totally doing the fizzing dinosaur bath eggs next! Both the boys will love that so much! I really, really wish I'd had it when the boys were babies because I definitely would have introduced sensory play earlier. It also includes non-messy ideas like small world play ideas and window art projects (and you know we love window art!)

Anyway, on to the slime!

For a slime nervous nellie like me, I really appreciated how the book held my hand every step of the way, and even gave alternatives for all the ingredients. Even though the items I needed for slime are commonly available, one of them was not available within a three block radius of my apartment and I don't do "Target runs".  (I know! This is NYC, I should have everything on my doorstep! Also, I don't have a car, so there's that.)

Anyway... while I was stirring up this gloopy, orange-y, slimey  goodness I was worried that my kids would reject it. They love bubbles, and making big giant messes, but it has taken effort to get hands messy with things like shaving cream.

Then it occurred to me there was one way I could guarantee my 5 year old would take a risk. I would hide his superhero action figures in it!

Genius. (If I do say so myself.)

On the walk home from school, I peaked his interest by telling him that his superheroes were at home, trapped in an orange blob. "They need rescuing!" I declared.

Needless to say, he had nooooo idea what I was talking about.

At first, he didn't want to get his hands in the slime (and his brother did decide to sit this activity out, darn it.) but I started playing with him and he gingerly tried it out.

As you can see from all the photos, he got quite into it.

Doesn't it make you want to whip up a batch of slime for the first (or 100th) time?

If you are looking for some unique and fun ideas (not all of them are messy!) to tempt your kids away from screens, I highly recommend 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids: The Very Best and Easiest Playtime Activities from FunAtHomeWithKids.com! 

Happy Playing!

The post I Survived Making Slime, One Kid Touched It, and No Superheroes Were Injured appeared first on What Do We Do All Day.

Shell Activities for Kids

Even though kids don't necessarily need any shell extension activities other than just enjoying and exploring the natural beauty of shells, it's still fun to bring the shells home and use them in our everyday play and add them into the mix of our other indoor activities.

Do you wash the shells after you bring them home? I insist upon it ever since we had a little beach fly incident. (Fortunately that incident occurred with shells that were closed up inside a jar. Whew!) Give your kids a bucket of soapy water and a scrub brush so they can pretend to be scientists, cleaning and polishing their specimens. I think Kiddo liked squeezing the soapy sponge as much as he liked digging around in his new shell collection!

Add in a magnifying glass to complete the study...

Kids still can't get enough seashell fun? Try one of these ideas:

• In the past, we've used seashells as objects for still life art drawings.
• I've got some easy instructions for how to make an ocean in a bottle. Every ocean needs some shells.
• Shells are fun to add to sorting activities. Use tongs or chopsticks to sort them into muffin tins.

Watch the video of ocean in a bottle to see just how much fun adding shells can be...

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One of my favorite tips to new parents is: let your kids make a mess.

The photo below gives a fairly accurate portray of what goes on around here on a daily basis, indoors. Take a look and tell me if you would allow such a travesty in your living room.

I am totally okay with it.

Why a Big Mess is OK

So, why do I let my kids make a big mess? Sensory trays and toy cars dumped all over the place? Toys strewn every which way?

One word: SANITY

Okay, now you are thinking, but isn't sanity more at risk when the home is messy?

Well, maybe. If the home stays messy.

Benefits of a Big Mess

You likely already know the huge benefits of free play and sensory play so I won't recap all that. You definitely already know about mess-containing strategies like placing towels under containers water or mats under paint, so I won't bore you with yet another condescending explanation.

But I will ask: Isn't 20 minutes* a child occupied with an activity that doesn't involve whining, sibling conflict, and otherwise extremely annoying behaviors worth a trip around the living room with a vacuum?

Well? Isn't it?

* New parents are shocked at the idea that a mere 20 minutes is worth all that mess. Until of course, their kids become toddlers and they realize 20 minutes is the same as 2 hours in toddler time.

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