Mini Sensory Bins

Acorn dumping out the money bin

Lately we've been doing a lot of different things with sensory bins. One of our most popular things right now is the mini bins - small containers with sensory activities. As you can see above, coins have been pretty popular (and he loves throwing pennies into fountains too).  We also have a container of rice, and a container that holds a bag of 15 bean soup mix beans:

These are great when we don't have a lot of time to clean up a big mess. Acorn is really into the sorts of bins he can pour and stir and scoop, so we're sticking with those sorts of things for the containers.

Under the Sea Sensory Bin

This past week, I dug out the Samhain sensory bin from last year. We hadn't done one in a while - this summer we had the sand and water table outside, which we used on a nearly daily basis when the weather was nice:

But now that it's chilly again (low 40s and rain), we need some indoor options. Especially since we're looking at a likely diagnosis of sensory processing disorder for Acorn  (IEP next week, hopefully with helpful results).

He's been enjoying the rice in the bin this week, and Leaf has been cautious about it, but since it's now November, it's time for a new bin, and I'd had a water theme in mind for quite a while, so here we go.

  
 

We have a new bin - this one is clear, and has a latching lid that Acorn can't open.  I'd heard about water beads a while back and thought they would be really neat for a water themed bin, so I started half of the package soaking a few days go. Unfortunately, what looked like a lot of beads turned out to only be about 3/4 of an inch in the bottom of our new bin (and it's smaller than the dishpan I was using before, so it'd've been even less there). Since I'm swapping out bins on my day off, I just added the rest of the package of beads, a few cups of water, and threw the fish and such in on top of them. I made sure to leave a spoon and some cups of various sizes for pouring the beads back and forth.

I expect this will be a challenging texture for both Acorn and Leaf - we'll see how they do, because too challenging might result in a quick change of bins, and I only really have one other theme in mind.

Our Spacy Sensory Bin

We missed doing a new bin for December, but here's January's space themed bin.

 

Contents:

4 pounds of black beans

1 Toob of space figures (satellites, space shuttle, astronauts, a space chimp, etc).

parts of 2 packs of glow-in-the-dark stars and planets



2 light-up squishy ball things (on clearance at walmart for $0.50 each)

I also added a vintage 1950's aluminum tumbler, a tea strainer ball (taken apart), a spoon, and a tea strainer spoon.

So far, Acorn is most interested in the big pink crescent moon and the tumbler - it makes a nice sound when you bang it on the counter and when pouring beans in and out of it.  We just put it together last night, so we haven't had an opportunity to see what he thinks of the glowing stars in the dark.

Sensory Bins

So many things to write about, so little time - between work and NICU and daycare woes, it's challenging finding time to sleep! There are more changes afoot here, which I'll say more about when the plan is more clear, but for now, we're just muddling along. I still have to write about finally (after all the insanity this summer) getting Acorn out on the bike, and about pumping and breastfeeding, and about daycare too. Acorn is getting the stoma (hole) from his trach sewn shut next week, so maybe there will be time to write then.

I'm home with Acorn today - he's got Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. The pediatrician said he could go back to daycare as long as he was fever free (and since we know he got it there because half the class had it 2 weeks ago, that doesn't bother me), but the daycare said he couldn't come back if he was getting new spots....and with this morning's level of crankiness, there was no sense in even trying it.

Our homeschooling totschool/preschool work ground to a halt without the support of nurses over the last year, but there are still things I want to do with Acorn (and with Leaf),  so we're just going to move forward as time permits.

Over nap time, I put together our first sensory bin (and this post!). I'm hoping to do a theme twice a month for now, to give Acorn something interesting to do other than the TV - he's totally fixated on it, largely because of nurses who played videos instead of doing other things we'd offered up.

Our theme for the rest of October is Halloween?Samhain.

First, since I'm working on a budget, I started with a dish pan I've owned for more than a decade, and the last of our white rice (about 6 cups; we could use more for this in the future - I see a Costco run in my future).

I debated buying birdseed for this, but I'm thinking I'll do that for next month. I also thought about making colored rice, but I can't help but think that one of these days I'm going to want to put 2 colors together, and then what will I do, sort through them all grain by grain to separate the colors again?

I then got all of our little bits and pieces together for this theme:

There's also a pair of big tweezers going in here, and possibly orange and black pompoms if I can remember where I hid them. 

Finally, I threw it all together:

Not bad for a first attempt done with almost no planning, don't you think?

Our New Calendar Board

Tonight we installed the new magnetic marker board that we're going to use for Acorn's calendar, weather station, and eventually for other magnetic toys.

Here's the board, just outside his room, in the hallway that has become the playroom - we can raise the board later when he's taller:

Here's the other side of the hallway - not tot trays per se, but many of Acorn's toys are on the shelves here, for him to get out when he wants:

Here are the dozens of calendar elements I've laminated by hand.

Here's the calendar setup:

And here's the work box of activities for Acorn to work on:

Introducing a more formal toddler homeschool

Due to our ongoing issues with early intervention, and Acorn surpassing all current goals (other than, you know, actually talking), it's becomming obvious he needs a little more challenge in his life. So, with the help of the nurses, we're going forward with plans for a more formal homeschooling effort. Off the record, I'm using the name Spiral Oak Family School on paperwork that comes up (like discount cards and such).

This summer we'll be working on opposites, alphabet, matching, sorting, and some sort of alphabet study. We'll be doing some unit study work, using a curriculum called Earth*School, a really nifty "nature themed" preschool curriculum (which includes the Wiccan Sabbats in some of their units as holidays, so we're actually really happy about that find). And of course we're continuing to work on sign language and adding in a lot of sensory activities. We're shooting for "language rich" and things that challenge him, because his problem solving skills are quite wonderful, and we want to encourage that.

I need to get pictures of stuff as we go forward, but first I have to find the camera. *sigh* It went missing recently, and I haven't managed to locate where it wandered off to. Anyone want to point me towards some good camera giveaways?

This week I bought Acorn's birthday gifts, most of which are educational toys - puzzles with opposites, sorting/patterning toys, and the game "Memory." We bought him a learning tower (with family chipping in). We got the playhouse kit and easel to go with it, which will be really nifty.

We are also creating a calendar/weather board for him - we purchased a big magnetic marker board, which will be hung in the play area (the hallway/landing outside his bedroom) this week. I created printables for months, days of the week, seasons, and weather, printed them, laminated them, and put magnets on the back (and lemme tell you, doing "cold lamination" by hand sucks after about the 10th piece; I did 45 pieces yesterday). We also got some weather printables from 1+1+1=1 - specifically the images of the various weather types (sunny, rainy, cloudy, etc). Is it worth not spending $50 on one?  I suppose it probably is, but boy has it taken a lot of work - frankly, the marker board alone is more $$, but it's also more customizeable, so it's more useful in the long run. Besides, I think I want to add moon phases and the wheel of the year holidays (on an actual spinner even), so I think ours will be best for us.

Because of our set-up, we're using a modified workbox technique - there's a box, with each activity in a folder; nurses are free to select anything out of the box (at least one a day, more if the therapy schedule allows) - things that are one-time events are then removed; things he can do over and over are put back in the box.

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