Counting Cupcakes Sensory Bin

This Counting Cupcakes Sensory Bin is super simple to set up and so much fun! We're in a stage where both of my boys love and benefit from activities in our sensory table. Sensory play is certainly a common catchphrase around classrooms and homes. Pinterest, Instagram and blogs are full of ideas and there's a whole market for materials related to sensory play. But what exactly are children gaining from playing in a basin full of dried beans, sand or water? Isn't it just playing? Not to mention the mess! I'm here to cheer you on and encourage you to take a deep breath. Grab a cheap dustpan and brush from your dollar store, maybe a plastic shower curtain, too, to catch the spills. And while there is a whole industry to target folks looking for sensory bin fillers, props, tools and trinkets, you don't need to break the bank. You can use (and re-use) inexpensive materials, many of which you have in the pantry or can access inexpensively from dollar stores, the grocery store or even secondhand. Unless something gets irreparably damaged in play or we all have horrendous runny noses, we store and save our fillers for future use. It's a good idea either way to wash hands before and after sensory play.

What skills are children developing through play at the sensory table? As a teacher and a parent, I'm of the mindset that sensory play targets a huge range of skills, especially when you are creative in your setup. Particularly for children who may struggle in certain developmental areas, the sensory table is a safe and confined space to explore and expand skills that are challenging in a more traditional setting.

• Fine motor development is targeted through scooping, pouring, pinching with tongs or tweezers, transferring, manipulating more viscous substances (like slime, dough, ooblek, kinetic sand, etc.). Sensory bins are a great place for scissor practice as well when children cut their own crepe paper, ribbon, yarn, paper, etc. Provide scrap paper and hole punches for children to create their own confetti filler. For children too young to cut with scissors, tearing tissue paper or crepe paper is another great way to target those tiny muscles.
• Literacy skills are targeted through the use of novel vocabulary. Talk about textures, colors, scents, what you are doing, planning, creating... You can add letter manipulatives and written words and labels to create a print rich environment or base a sensory table on children's literature to extend a lesson through play.
• Social skills like engaging in conversations, problem solving (navigating sharing materials, space and ideas) are targeted especially when children work in pairs. In my classrooms, the sensory table was a place where children who may not typically play together did have an opportunity to do so. Sometimes this was strategic on my part (as in, I chose pairs and the desire to play in our sensory bin outweighed the desire to only play with certain students). Friendships developed in this space that might not have happened on the playground or in other areas.
• Problem solving skills and other executive functioning skills are called into play when children tinker, build, rearrange and otherwise navigate materials in the sensory bin.
• Symbolic play and abstract play skills that children struggle with or resist in a dramatic play setting are often more appealing (and less threatening) in the confines of a sensory bin when small world play is introduced through the addition of toy animals, people and other props. Children who do not naturally engage in role playing and character/story development through traditional dramatic play often feel more comfortable to do so in this setting.
• Math concepts like sequencing, measurement, sorting/categorizing, shape and numeral recognition, one-to-one correspondence and even early operations and fractions can be introduced through sensory play.
• Science is in action as children manipulate and observe materials found in nature or chemical reactions and states of matter of various concocted sensory bin fillers.
• STEM skills are targeted with opportunities to build, construct, design, transport and otherwise manipulate a variety of materials and loose parts.

Lately, S has been very engaged in play about cupcakes and baking. He uses pom poms, toy dishes and recycled containers on a daily basis to set up shop and sell his wares. He is always making sweet treats with play dough and clay (in fact, we've been working on a batch of Model Magic cookies to be used in our kitchen set). Such was the inspiration for our latest sensory bin. S is also making huge strides in his math skills both at school and at home. As it is something that interests him, I incorporate it into our play. Nonetheless, even if you have a reluctant mathematician at home, sensory play is a great way to sneak it in! Y just LOVES playing at the sensory table. He often spends even more time playing there than S! He loves practicing scooping, pouring and transferring and, um, cleaning up spills... He isn't quite to the point of counting candles or numeral recognition, but he will surely have a great time playing and exposure through play is the path to success down the road.

Here's what you'll need to set up your own Counting Cupcakes Sensory Bin:

• Rainbow Dyed Rice for filler. We reused the batch I had from our UnBirthday Party theme last spring, so it has some birthday confetti mixed in.
• Vanilla extract (optional) for scent
• Plastic cups and scoops (both from Dollar Tree). You can also use silicone cupcake liners and recycle scoops from protein powder or other drink mixes.
• Birthday candles
• Number magnets or candles
• A number line (optional) to support early mathematicians who do not yet recognize numerals

Children can use scoops to fill their cupcake cups, choose a number or number candle and then stick in the corresponding number of birthday candles.

Variations on the theme:

• Provide a second set of magnetic numerals and an addition symbol and equal sign. Children can set up and solve their own addition problem by adding two cupcakes together.
• Add some dice or a spinner into the mix and have children roll/spin to choose their number.
• Younger children (like Y) can play and explore by scooping, pouring, transferring and sticking candles into the rice.

Looking for more sensory bin ideas? Check out our extensive collection of related posts here and stay tuned for more ideas in the future! Until then...

Happy Playing!

For the Love of Letters! (and Numbers...)

Whenever I need a quick and easy to prepare homeschool activity, I know I can count on my toddler's love of letters. We have not exactly done a "letter of the week" this year, but I have introduced alphabet letters, one at a time, over the course of the last several months. I have chosen a specific order of introduction based on studies of child development and early literacy. That said, I do not drill or push worksheets or even have a goal in mind of my toddler being able to recognize letter names and sounds at 2 years old. He does recognize a good number of letters by name and some sounds. Most importantly, however, he loves learning and playing about them! If you've followed our alphabet posts in the past, you'll see how I utilize a multi-sensory approach to introducing both English and Hebrew letters. We do some crafts, some sensory play, some learning activities and a lot of repetition/predictable routine (like the songs we sing when introducing letters or certain materials used to introduce them). Here are a couple of our recent alphabet adventures (along with some of the numbers and counting themed activities we have incorporated as we learn about Sefiras Ha'omer):

Our Munch Monster is a favorite material that I bring out repeatedly for learning new letters. He loves to eat our letter of the week (in magnet form) and proudly displays his favorite "food" in sticky-note form whenever a new letter arrives. 

Mmmm, letter Qq! Quite delicious!

Q-tip painting was a fun (and fine-motor-developing) way to decorate our letter Qq page.

Half of the fun was exploring color mixing, using Q-tips to stir several colors of paint together in an ice cube tray.

Dinosaur collage and plastic dinosaur stamping for letter Dd

We display our letter art for a short while and then it gets saved inside the alphabet book we've been working on inside this binder over the past months. There are many great ways to preserve work like this. You can make your own alphabet book or even laminate your letters for play-dough mats (another great way to practice pre-writing).

Sometimes our letter of the week will incorporate our current theme (we were learning about dinosaurs when these letter Dd projects were made). Other times, I may choose a letter-related theme that my son is particularly interested in. He is right now very interested in zoo animals since we have purchased a membership to our local zoo. That seemed like a great theme to incorporate into learning about the letter Zz this week!

It was the 14th day of the Omer, and we counted 14 zoo animals!

This time, we used a favorite alphabet board book to introduce our letter of the week and my little letter lover immediately found his toy zebra to match the picture on the page!

Even baby brother gets in on the fun and learning with a zoo-themed setup on the activity mat. I recently printed out and laminated the whole alphabet onto colored printer paper to use for just this purpose. Both brothers are enjoying it!

Z stamping and zoo stickers on our letter Zz page. 

Sometimes our letter learning is intentional and at other times it happens naturally. We might point out that zipper begins with our letter of the week as we are zipping up a coat to go outside. While doodling on paper, we might notice a zigzagging line. My greatest feeling of "success" comes when I hear "p-p-p P!" from my little guy who is snacking on potato chips in his car seat and recognized the letter P on the bag! He also loves pointing out letters on signs, trucks, in the grocery store and beyond. As long as he is motivated and interested, I know his love of learning will carry him toward development of literacy skills all in due time. For now, we are learning a lot and happily playing here!

A Peek Inside Our Playroom: Counting the Omer & Numbers/Counting Theme

We counted nine toy cars for the ninth day!

The dust is beginning to settle after the excitement of welcoming home our newest family member and then Pesach. The period between Pesach and Shavuos is a special time as well. Sefiras Ha'Omer, or counting the omer is a way we mark the seven weeks between the two holidays each year. We say special prayers each day as we count and take on certain practices to mark this period of time that will culminate on the 50th day with the sweet holiday of Shavuos--the commemoration of our receiving the Torah. To be quite honest, I had no idea this period of time even existed as a child nor did I even know anything about counting the omer until I was an adult! The deeper meaning behind this time is that we are meant to work on self-refinement as we prepare to renew our special relationship with G-d and His Torah. For young children, it is a great time to introduce both this deeper meaning (at an age appropriate level) while also incorporating the mathematical concepts of counting, one-to-one-correspondence, grouping (seven weeks of seven days) and numbers in general. For very young children, like my toddler, multi-sensory exposure through play is by and far the best way to introduce these developmental concepts. We have set up our play area to incorporate materials that introduce numbers and rudimentary counting activities. We also practice the main bracha (blessing) over the omer each day and introduce a manipulative/small toy in that quantity so he can get a concept through play of what that means.

Our shelf is stocked with some number and counting themed materials, puzzles and games. My toddler especially loves the puzzles (actually a find from our local Dollar Tree). 

A variety of magnetic, foam and felt number manipulatives are great for hands-on exploration, whether it's in a sensory bin, on a magnetic board, in the tub or on our felt wall. 

We found these snap blocks at Target in the fall. Older children can use them to solve simple equations while younger ones can enjoy snapping, building and stacking.

We brought out this learning activity from our previous Community Helpers theme when we learned about teachers. Combining materials like number flashcards (these felt ones are from Target) and mini erasers (these were from Dollar Tree) is a great way to introduce one to one correspondence.

I like to strategically place materials related to our theme all over the place for my little learner to find. He happened to lift up his easel from its tabletop position one afternoon only to discover these little number magnets I'd found at the Dollar Tree.

Eight blocks for the 8th day!

We have incorporated the bracha and counting into our daily davening/circle time routine. My toddler gets quite excited by the element of surprise when I take out this drawstring bag filled with our number of the day and a toy/manipulative. We always enjoy a little time playing with it together and I welcome his desire to add more toys into the mix or work with the material in whatever way interests him. In other words, he need not leave his building limited to 8 woodblocks because it is the eighth day! We do have a couple of other creative ways of tracking our counting on display that you can view below. In addition to counting toys or other small objects, you could also have your child(ren) choose an action to do a number of times to correspond to the number of the day. This allows children to feel that number through whole body learning. Ten jumps on the tenth day is a great way to get on (and off) your feet and just wait until you start creeping up through the thirties--you'll really get your heart rate up then!

At home we use this makeshift abacus to count our seven weeks of seven days. I did this project with my preschoolers last year using cardstock (I couldn't resist the idea of incorporating my fellow number lover, The Count from Sesame Street), yarn and pony beads. The students were able to mostly independently string the beads on of their choice, count their groups of seven and, with assistance, tie off the ends for use at home.

Here is a larger scale abacus using construction paper rings on yarn stapled to a bulletin board. You could create counters in a number of ways, charting one by one with die cuts or paper squares or sticky notes, with a paper chain, on a chart or calendar...

...or with this little DIY tracker using wooden cubes labeled with numbers and the word days. I used 4 cubes and labeled 0-4 on one half and 5-9 on the other. On each cube I wrote the word "days" on the sixth side. You could paint and otherwise decorate them as well. We store and display them on a recycled tin (yes, that's Yoda from Star Wars), though you could also use a match box or simply set them up on any flat surface for display.

Whether you're counting to omer or just looking for ways to incorporate more counting practice into your day, hope you have some fun and inspiration from these simple ideas and activities. We will be back soon with some more fun and learning. Until then...happy playing!