Friday, December 20, 2013

"Snow" Sensory Bin

Minne-Mama is on Facebook! 'Like' us to stay updated on our fun crafts and activities!
Thank you for stopping by!

We had holiday parties in our music class the past two weeks. Part of the class was a 'snow fight' with big white puff balls. Skyler giggled and smiled while the music played and the snow balls were thrown around. He would stoop down, pick up a handful and toss them in every direction. To recreate this at home, I went to find the most fluffy white yarn I could. I used it to make pom poms, but because of the thickness of the yarn, it ended up more like a sphere of snow - perfect! I added in some other snowy items, and we had an all white, sensory bin that can be described with many sensory words!


For this sensory bin I found extremely fluffy white yarn, a thinner white yarn, Styrofoam balls, and snowflake sequins.


To make the pom poms, I wrapped the thicker yarn 25 times around two or three fingers and the thinner yarn 35 or 60 times around two fingers, which produced varying sizes of each of the yarns. I ended up using the entire skein of the fluffy yarn, and most of the thinner yarn. 


I slid the wrapped yarn off of my fingers and tied an additional piece of yarn around the center, knotting it tightly. 

 

The next step is to slid the scissor through half of the loops and cut them, and then repeat on the other half of loops.


With the thick yarn I rolled the completed ball around in my hand like a snow ball and then went around the ball to trim off pieces that stuck out. With the thinner yarn, I didn't have to roll it around, I just snipped off the pieces that were obviously longer.



The completed bin with both types of pom poms, foam balls, and sequins.

There are many descriptive words I use when talking to Skyler about the objects in his sensory bin, even though they are all "white snow"


The pom poms are fluffy, soft, and fuzzy.


The foam balls are round, rough, bumpy, and hard.


The sequins are smooth, shiny, sparkly, and Skyler thinks they are "pretty!"

With a high fever, my poor guy was not feeling his best today. We had a pajama (and 'soothie' actually came out from the crib!) day. It was a good time to bring out a new sensory bin. He carefully felt all of the different items, especially liking the sequins. After exploring for a bit, he knew what to do with the pom poms and soon our room was filled just as it was at music class. 



Skyler enjoyed playing with this today, and I am excited to use it with him when he is back to his smiley and talkative self. I think this bin will be a popular item in our house throughout the holidays.

4 comments:

  1. Will be adding these to our Winter Dramatic Play area with our Igloo and snow bricks (cardboard blocks covered in white butcher paper) as soon as school starts again. Our sensory table contains 10 gallons of Snow Magic snow. Last year it was voted best sensory table of the year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That sounds wonderful! We will have to try making some snow bricks. I think my little guy would love them.

      Delete
  2. what brand and where did you get the white fluffy yarn from

    ReplyDelete