Simple Spooky Sensory Play

This past week, I made Kingston two really simple "spooky" sensory bins!! The first one was Melted Monster Oobleck. I love oobleck and used to make it all the time when I worked in daycare. I was really excited to try it with Kingston. It is a really good sensory material for testing fine motor skills because little ones really need to use them when trying to scoop the slop off the bottom of the bin. It is tough at first to grab and then melts in your hands. It is so much fun!

This is such a simple sensory bin to set up! I simply put cornstarch in the bottom of the bin, added water until the consistency was right (not too much or you will lose the oobleckiness of the oobleck!) and then added a bit of green food coloring. Some googly eyes finished off our melted monster, and Kingston dug in. 

(Notice all of the black ink all over his body? Look forward to THAT post this week!)

He wasn't sure what to make of it, and kept flattening his hands on top of it, which for those of you who have made oobleck before you know that it only compresses the oobleck and makes it harder to pick up. I assisted him by scraping the oobleck up and letting it run through my hands onto his. He was more interested in splattering the oobleck on floor and examining what happened when he squished it. 

The next super simple spooky sensory play we did was some Spooky Sensory Shaving Cream!! We have never played with shaving cream  before, and I must admit I was very excited. I squirted the shaving cream in the bin, added some fun little black plastic creatures from the Dollar Tree, and some googly eyes. 

He was really weirded out by the shaving cream. Intrigued by the plastic spiders, he tentatively stuck his fingers into the white mousse. 

He squished the shaving cream between his fingers and made a face! I pointed out the bugs and critters inside and the colors black and white. 

It was about this point that he decided he did NOT want to play in this wonderful shaving cream/creature mixture. I was mortified. This is twice (both with slimy, sticky, weird things) that K was not into the sensory play. I put down my camera at this point and dug both my hands in to the shaving cream (prior to that, only one was in it) and tried to show Kingston what fun it was. He was over it and crawled away, slapping his shaving cream hands all over the floor in the process. I just don't get it. I sat and played with the shaving cream for about 10 minutes (Yup, it was amazing!! Seriously.. if you have never played with shaving cream, get on it!) and then cleaned it up. 

Hopefully Kingston gets over his messy sensory bin phobia soon. Mama wants to make messes!!