Toddlers are typically curious about the things around them by using their senses to explore and learn. Sensory activities are great to do with toddlers to help stimulate their senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. According to Angela Thayer, sensory activities are also great for calming an anxious or frustrated child.
Today I am excited to share with you some sensory activities we had last week. The first activity was I set up a dinosaur sensory bin, which an idea originated from Teaching Mama. Chesska is into dinosaurs right now after watching"The Walking Dinosaurs" several times. In this activity, I just let her touch and play with the sand and dinosaurs. In fact, she loved digging and finding small pebbles. I could see the excitement in her eyes every time she found something new such as tiny shells with different sizes. True enough, this kind of activity stopped her from throwing tantrums.
Next sensory play we did was easy and simple to set up called Ice Painting. It is a fun way to introduce sensory attributes such as cold and smooth. I just let her imagination play while painting in the ice. She drew anything whatever came up in her mind. It is a great and fun activity for warm days. In fact, Chesska was begging me to do it again the following day.
Again, Chesska was so fascinated with dinosaurs so I created dinosaur ice eggs. So in each ice wrapper, I placed a dinosaur , tied it shut to form an oval similar to egg's shape, and froze it overnight. I let her touch the frozen dinosaurs and asked her an open-ended question such as "How can the dinosaurs go out from the eggs"? From there, I can draw out answers from her.
How do you like the sensory play we did last week? If you want more sensory ideas, kindly visit this page.

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Today, I'm going to share with you our sensory play of the week, which is the frog life cycle. I must admit that this was not my original idea. When I first saw this idea from Angela Thayer, I decided to give it a try since Chesska is a big fan of Princess and the Frog story. But this activity is a little different than Angela Thayer's.


Here's what I used for the activity:

• large bin
• rocks
• soil
• frogs
• marbles for eggs
• leaves
• small and big frogs
• twig
• coloring
• clay for tadpoles

I had a hard time looking for tadpoles, eggs, and frogs anywhere at the store so I thought of using clay in place of tadpoles and marbles for eggs. After a long search of where to buy the frogs, I finally found adult frog at the Victoria Plaza. Bought small ones at Gaisano Mall, Toril.



To make the activity more fun, I invited Chesska's friends to play with her. I just let them play and use their imagination. I discussed briefly that frogs need to lay eggs in the water, else the eggs will die. I also talked about how the frogs change their appearance as they grow.


I cut out twig from our yard and had marbles in place of eggs sink in the water.



I created several tadpoles out of clay.

This is a fantastic activity to do outdoor with your preschooler. Try it out!
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