Bird Feeders

We made these bird feeders back before Christmas.  I found lots of different ways of doing this on Pinterest (new favourite place to waste time!) and decided on these two methods as they both used skills the boys are using quite well in different activities - rolling, threading and using cookie cutters.

The first one used toilet rolls rolled in peanut butter and then rolled through bird seed....

For the second ones we spread bread with peanut butter, cut out shapes and then pressed them into the seed.  I made holes in them and encouraged the boys to thread the string through.

We also spent time using the bird seed for general sensory play and encouraged tasting of the peanut butter on bread, which Charlie enjoyed :) .

We took the feeders to my mum's as she has a bird table and I feel a bit mean encouraging birds into our garden as we have 3 cats!

Pomanders

We had lots of oranges doing nothing in the fruit bowl so I thought I'd try making some pomanderish things with the children.  I didn't get any good pictures of them actually doing it, they all blurred, but here is James' one....

.....he did really well, it appealed to his ability to do tasks related to putting things 'in' or 'on' and he finished this one happily.  However, when I asked him if he would like to do another, he put all the oranges in the bowl, walked me over to the shelves and placed the bowl onto them! I took that as a no! Brilliant bit of communication though! 

Charlie, Gaby and myself also had a go.  I encouraged Charlie to do some sensory playing with them once they were all done, they smelt lovely!

Lavender Play Dough

I've been planning this for a while and finally got around to making it this week.  I made purple play dough to which I added lavender oil before cooking.  Once cooked, I split it into 2, left one half plain and added some dried lavender to the other half to add more aroma and texture. 

It was a great idea in theory, a nice calming and relaxing play at the table.....unfortunately I forgot to add the cream of tartar so we ended up with an immensely sticky mess - not so relaxing!!!

 I'm going to make some more though as I do think it's a great way to use essential oils with the boys. 

Messy Rainbow Painting

Hands always find their way into our painting activities but was planned for with this one....

We squirted the paint directly out of the bottles onto a large piece of lining paper using 'hand over hand' to make a big rainbow. I left a brush next to it and encouraged both brushing the paint and pushing hands through it.  Needless to say, the hands won!

Bendy Twisty Sensory Rainbows

We made these with jumbo pipe cleaners stuck into play dough.

These were made out of bendy wax sticks.  They were too small for the boys to deal with so I gave them some to hold and do there own thing with whilst I made them some rainbows which I stuck into shaving foam 'clouds'.

I had a very hard time trying to get James not to eat the shaving foam!

Rainbow Sand

A few things we've done with our rainbow sand....

Rainbow Rice

This is the main sensory play activity I've made to bring out for our rainbow theme.  I've made it before, after the boys were playing with it a lot when first at school, however, I've now learned to fix the colour with vinegar!

....we all enjoy playing with it!

Playdough Dinosaurs

We did these a couple of weeks ago and I really like how they turned out.  I made green playdough and added some green split peas to it to give it some bumpy scaly type texture.  We cut out dinosaurs shapes with cutters, made footprints with toy dinosaurs,

and then I made dinosaurs for the boys put 'spikes' onto.

Swamp

Today we made a swamp for our dinosaurs.  I used 2 packs of 'Gelli Baff' in the paddling pool to make it gooey.  It was very effective and a great sensory experience. I didn't mix in in properly (on purpose) which left some areas very gooey and others still watery.  We listened to 'The Prehistoric Dinosaur Brigade' and I tried to encourage stomping!

James predictably went for the greenery I put around the edges.....

.....someone else got back from school and got straight in....



....and then I spent AGES clearing up!!

Dinosaur Sensory Box

Sand, dinosaur toys and a bit of greenery from the garden.

James is quite interested in this at the moment. He's been very playful with it, putting his hands and feet in and giggling, waiting for me to 'bury' his feet and help him make prints with both the dinosaurs and himself!

Lentil Dinosaurs

Today we made these.

It was an extremely successful activity.  Both boys did really well, spreading the glue onto the dinosaurs and sprinkling on the lentils. 

I cut the dinosaurs out of old cereal packets in advance. 

As we did the gluing and sprinkling I added in labeling words like head, feet, body and tail.

Afterwards we had a good play with the lentils in the tray.  We mostly use red lentils for sensory play, but I will be getting some more of these brown ones because Charlie really enjoyed the sound (I think!) they made in the tray. 

With James the activity turned into a really great communication session because I started shaking the lentils in the tray which he thought was hilarious and so kept signing 'more please'.  This is great, he really is using these signs in lots of different situations now.

There was quite a bit of clearing up to do afterwards....

....but it was worth it!

Bubbles

I've just realised I never finished this post! We had a lot going on around Christmas time so it just got forgotten about.  So here it is, finally finished....

When James and Charlie were babies I used to take bubbles to entertain them with at the park whilst their older sister played and a lovely memory I have of this time is of an elderly lady approaching us one day.  I was thinking 'oh god, here we go again, its going to be 'Are they twins?'/'You've got your hands full' time, but instead she really joyfully wanted to see our bubbles and tell us how much she loved to watch them floating about! She did coo over the babies too and I often think of her when we play with bubbles. 

So bubbles have been an ongoing theme for years.  Even when the boys were at their most distant, bubbles would still get a small reaction and were one of the few ways we could engage them in 'play'.  We use them for communication games, by blowing some bubbles and then waiting for a cue that they want more.  At first this would be just the tiniest bit of eye contact, gesture or murmur.  Latterly this has developed into signing 'please' and now signing 'more please'. 

Recently we had a whole week of 'bubbles' at the end of our 'water' project, so here are a few pictures of the different ways we experienced them.

I think the bubble wands are great for our lads. They are not able to blow bubbles yet, but can make bubbles themselves by waving or spinning around with the wand.  They were fab on the beach because it was windy and the bubbles did themselves!

The tasting of 'bubbly water' was not a popular activity!

The following were taken at '@-Bristol' who we found to have a great attitude towards home educating families, people with disabilities and carers, very refreshing!!

Here are a few random pictures of the bubble machine....

they build up really nicely when we set the machine off over the table, only to be whooshed away!

Here's an older one of our stand in bubbly 'thingy'....

This is (I think) a Natural History Museum toy, I can't see it on their website now but then this picture was taken 2 years ago.  It is a really good activity and works very well. 

We also have tried Touchable Bubbles which I find a bit strange. They hang around for ages though so are great to keep going back to for observations - they wrinkle up.  They also leave marks on everything!