Stephanie Oswald

Parenting blogger and early childhood intervention specialist. Mom, wife, coffee addict, nature junkie, book loving, kid at heart!

Even and Odd Number Hop

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Even and Odd Number Hop Game

This last week has been filled with tears as Livia has worked her way through her homework. And when asked how her day at school went the response was always somewhere along the lines of, “Oh, it went well but I hate math.” One of the ways that Livia stims is through humming and even at times Opera singing. So, the day she came home and admitted to getting in trouble during math class for “warming up her vocal cords” I knew it was time to find a way to make math fun and help some of the concepts she was struggling with concrete themselves in her mind. This Even and Odd Number Hop Game was a solution to our math problem.

Even and Odd Number Hop Game

With Livia she was able to identify even and odd numbers up to 10. The minute we got up to 11, 12, 13…she would begin to scramble and stim. The key to creating a memory is attention; being able to focus on the sensory input long enough to make a working memory (and eventually a semantic memory).

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Shaving Cream Clouds on a Mirror

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Shaving Cream Clouds on a Mirror

Every day we head to the park, even if it is only for 10 minutes. It’s a simple ritual that I greatly enjoy. A brief time of silence as the kids run around and have fun. The other day while we were at the park Meatball noticed a couple grey clouds. Not being able to verbalize what he was seeing, he acted it out until I understood. Following his curiosity we decided on painting shaving cream clouds once we got home.

Shaving Cream Clouds on a Mirror

This activity turned out to be so much more fun than I expected. In the past we have had a ton of fun playing with shaving cream but, quite honestly I expected this activity to not hold his attention for that long being outside and all. If given the choice Meatball is not one to pick sedentary activities outdoors…but leave it to him, this one definitely was not what I expected it to be.

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Hammering Water Beads

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Hammering Water Beads

So…it’s no secret that my kids LOVE water beads. At least twice a week they are requesting that the water beads get pulled out. While I love sensory bins, there are times (especially when the weather outside is beautiful) that we need to be exploring more than a bin. Hammering Water Beads is a fantastic way to take a water bead sensory bin and extend the play into some gross motor fun.

Hammering Water Beads

The other day while I was talking to a colleague, they said to me that they were not into sensory play. That they didn’t care for the mess of sensory bins. And I’ll be honest, my heart sunk a little because I realized that some of the activities that I share on the blog make it seem like sensory play happens in a bin and is always messy. And that can’t be farther from the truth — that is just the type of sensory play my kids prefer. And while this activity is messy (because we love messy play) I hope that it helps get you thinking outside of the bin 😉

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Moon Excavation! Construction Sensory Bin with Exploding Frozen Stars

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Moon Excavation! Construction Sensory Bin with Exploding Stars

Moon Excavation! Construction Sensory Bin with Exploding Frozen Stars –MAN that’s a mouthful! The things our kids can come up with when you let their imaginations run wild! This month we have been working on shapes with Meatball and for some reason or another, the one he is having difficulty recognizing are the stars. Whenever he is shown a star, he labels it as a triangle. I suppose they are made up of a bunch of triangles, so on some level the confusion does make sense.

This sensory bin made from taste safe moon sand and frozen baking soda stars was used to explore a variety of different stars to try to reinforce the shape through conversation and play.

Moon Excavation! Construction Sensory Bin with Exploding Stars

This bin is also a hodge-podge of a bunch of Meatballs favorite things right now. Cars…we can never get enough of those. Construction — Good Night, Good Night, Construction site is a go everywhere with us favorite (we even made a sensory bin to go with it). Anything and everything Outer Space, hence the moon sand. And of course dirt, mud, sticky, ooey-gooey messes.

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