Pumpkin Gut Sensory Bag

This time of year there always seems to be tons of pumpkins around for carving, decor, or crafts! So why not use the pumpkin for a sensory activity?! This would be great to do along with pumpkin carving, or it is a fun stand alone activity.

Materials Needed:

• Pumpkin

• Knife

• Halloween themed pieces of choice (we decided to go with witch fingers)

• Ziplock Bag

Step 1: Cut the top of the pumpkin off using a knife. If carving this will be a small top cut, but if doing as a stand alone activity cut into more of a bowl shape with a large opening.

Step 2: Look at all those amazing pumpkin guts!! Scoop them away from the sides, add your halloween toys, and mix together.

*Therapy tip: For a really gooey sensory experience you can have your child help mix the toys in using their hands, or have them try to find the items by digging in pumpkin bowl for the toys.

Step 3: For a less messy sensory experience, scoop all the contents into a large ziplock bag. Have your child work to find the hidden pieces or try to move the pieces into a line or make a shape. Have Fun!

*Therapy tip: This is a great way to work on isolation of the pointer finger! Try using the pointer finger to move the seeds, search for objects, or line objects up.

Tactile Pipe Cleaner ABC trace

We love practicing handwriting and letter recognition skills with our kiddos during therapy. We also love a hands-on and sensory approach when it comes to learning, so these tactile tracing letters are perfect! Kids can practice tracing along the letters while receiving sensory feedback from the pipe cleaners. This extra input can help with learning, and the tracing is a great prep for writing skills.

Supples needed:

• Cardboard

• Scissors

• Pipe Cleaners

• Hot Glue

• Marker

Step 1: Cut cardboard into rectangles (the number you cut depends on the number of letter cards you are going to make). We recommend starting with the letters in your child’s name and then building from there.

Step 2: Using your marker, draw an uppercase and lowercase letter onto cardboard

Step 3: Place pipe cleaners over drawn letters and cut down to the size needed.

Step 4: Cut pipe cleaners and glue down on top of your drawn letters.

Step 5: Using our ABC Tracing Packet as a guide, add numbers and arrows so your child can practice tracing using correct letter formation.

Step 6: Have Fun!! Let your child explore the letters and get sensory/tactile feedback to help with learning. Practice saying the sounds along with each letter, or coming up with words that start with that letter.

Sensory Bottle Craft

We love sensory bottles!! They are so much fun, and can be a great tool TO target a variety of developmental goals. Here are some play ideas to use with your homemade sensory bottle:

1. Practice Turn Taking: Sensory bottles are so fun to shake and look at up close. Use this as encouragement to help with turn taking between siblings, friends, or with parents/caregivers. We recommend using a timer at the beginning to make turn taking easier.

2. Language Skills: Try using the sensory bottle to encourage language development. For younger kids this can be as simple as signing or verbalizing “more.” For older children sensory bottles are great tools to talk about what they see (color words, fast/slow, pretty, shinny).

3. Science Skills: Making a sensory bottle can be a great early science experiment. When deciding what to put inside the bottle, have fun guessing which object will fall slowest and fastest. What a great opportunity to discuss weight and density! Get creative and put different items from around the house inside your bottle. You can also adjust the ratio of gel in the water to experiment with density, and how that effects the speed of the objects falling. Kids love learning through hands-on experiments!

4. Math Skills: Create a counting sensory bottle with a different number of colored objects. Then practice counting how many of each color they see, or practice adding the colors together.

5. Sensory/Motor Exploration: Practice shaking, rolling, and tipping the bottle in different directions to see the results. Kids can crawl after the bottle as is rolls across the floor, or try jumping while holding the bottle to see how that mixes the bottle up. What does it look like from upside down?! Get creative and add some movement to the fun

6. Self-Regulation Skills: Sensory bottles can be a great addition to a calm down corner or space. They give kids something to focus on while decompressing. We like to encourage taking deep breaths and focusing on the bottle until the glitter settles. They can flip it over again if they need extra time to calm.

7. Visual Scanning: Play a game of “I Spy” with your sensory bottle by adding a variety of small objects to the bottle. Then as they fall try to find the right object.

8. Sensory Exploration: Sensory bottles are such a fun no-mess way to stimulate the sensory system. To add an extra element of fun, try shining a flashlight up through the bottom of the bottle to create a disc-ball effect on the walls!

How to make your own sensory bottle at home:

Materials Needed: empty water bottle (we prefer VOSS brand), clear hair gel, glitter, object to let fall (small legos, plastic toy, beans, dry pasta), and super glue

Step 1: Fill empty bottle with glitter and falling objects. We filled the bottom of our bottle with 1 inch of glitter.

Step 2: Fill separate measuring cup with warm water, and add hair gel. We like to use 1 part hair gel to 8 parts water, but this ratio can change if you want objects to fall slower or faster. The more gel, the slower the objects will fall.

Step 3: Gently stir hair gel to mix with warm water until it dissolves. Then let the water cool to room temperature.

Step 4: Pour the water/gel mixture ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP of the bottle. You want as little air as possible in the bottle to keep glitter from getting stuck at the top.

Step 5: Test it out! If you are happy with the results superglue the lid on to prevent any spills.

Step 6: HAVE FUN!!