Mystery Sensory Bags for Baby: The Kitchen

After an awful few days of Kingston being in the hospital due to intussusception, I was so thrilled to jump into an activity with him today. It made everything feel like it was back to normal, and I was so grateful to be able to be doing something fun with my sweet boy. I thought it would be fun and low maintenance to create our next mystery sensory bag! I chose the most integral part of our house: the kitchen!

This seems to be the easiest of rooms to create a bag out of by far! There is such an array of different fun materials in our kitchen. I tried to find items that had different textures, concepts, and weights. Here are the items I chose for our kitchen bag:  a bottle brush, an empty puffs container, a simply cup, a small red melamine bowl, a whisk, a heart cookie cutter, a green baby fork, a plastic spoon, a breastmilk storage magnet chart (this is on our refrigerator!), a "B" napkin, an ice cream scoop, and a shark plate that we gave K on his first Valentine's Day.

I placed all of the items in the bag, and set it down in the center of the kitchen. I thought it would be appropriate to place the items in context! The most brilliant thing about a mystery sensory bag, is that the bag itself always seems to remain intriguing to baby. Kingston still thinks the brown bag is so much fun. He loves the concept of peering inside to discover what mystery lay within!

The first item he pulled out was a sippy cup. It was fun to watch his wheels turning. He laughed at it as if he was thinking, "What a silly spot for my sippy cup Mama!" Then he looked at it for a second before popping it straight into his mouth. I pointed out the orange and green colors of the cup and lid. He kept the cup in his mouth as he reached into the bag to find something else.

 Kingston explored this bag differently then he explored the last bag! Last time, he generally took the items out one at a time. With this bag, he took a bunch of items out to explore together. He was quick to tear into the entire bag, strewing the items all over the kitchen floor. Then he went back to explore all of them. He had fun with the puffs container and cookie cutter, banging them together and opening the top of the container. He also enjoyed rolling it around on the floor!

  

Next, he pulled out the utensils. He briefly played with the little green fork and the plastic spoon. I told him the names of each object and pointed out the different colors. When he spotted the whisk, however, he was done listening. He couldn't get enough of it! I kind of figured it would be a hit, since it is such a strange object in relation to all the other more common items that he has seen before. He chomped on the whisk, tapped it on the floor, used it to push all the different items around, and chomped on it some more! He was very entertained by it.



 He took out all of the rest of the items next! He explored the plate by smacking it up and down on the floor. He touched each little compartment. Then he examined the red bowl. I put it on his head which got him laughing! He was excited by the ice cream scoop because it was heavy. I used the word "heavy" and offered him the plastic spoon which I told him was "light". Of course he preferred the heavy scoop! He is a little hulk! He briefly mouthed the magnet. Usually he is really into magnets, but there were too many other exciting objects to explore.

He picked up the napkin next! We took turns playing peekaboo with it. K loves peekaboo, especially when you say, "Where's Kingston? THERE HE IS!" He claps and will throw the napkin (blanket, diaper, fabric etc. over his head to go again!). It is super adorable. I love that he is big enough to play interactive games.

The last object Kingston explored was the bottle brush. K is really into brushes lately, so I knew he would like this. This bottle brush has rubbery bristles. He delicately touched the bristles. He was very intent on closely exploring the brush. He tasted it, but was more interested in examining the bristles.

Kingston seemed to enjoy exploring this bag. It did not hold his interest as long as the previous bag though, probably because a lot of these items were very familiar to him. He is use to playing with bowls, utensils, cups, napkins etc. The objects he was more interested in were the ones he had never seen before. The next location we do for a mystery sensory bag, I want to choose objects that are very foreign to K! It is always way more fun to see him experience things for the first time!

If you liked this mystery sensory bag, please come check out the others in this series:

Mystery Sensory Bags for Baby: The Junk Drawer

Mystery Sensory Bags for Baby: The Kitchen