Sensory Activity for Infants

Our job as parents and caregivers is to make everyday an experience that kids will remember. If we're lucky they'll remember it for a lifetime and pass on those innovative ideas from childhood on to their children. The Ooey Gooey Lady®  is a wellspring of genius innovative ideas that she shares with the world. If you've never been to one of her conferences or workshops, you need to sign up. Her website is here.

Today with the kids I wanted to do something different, less messy if you will, mostly because of the mischievous 10-month old crawling behind me. The children that find me are usually sensory in some way, aren't we all, and I try to support those learning techniques. It's not only for them to enjoy playing but for them to remember learning. So much of school is sitting still in a chair and forcing your brain to focus. I didn't learn that way and neither do my kids. It wasn't until I started learning things in a sensory way that I began to understand how important making that connection was.

As a nation we should focus more on using things we might already have as opposed to buying new everytime. Who doesn't have contact paper for that odd place mat you made 4 years ago? Or the bubble wrap that you had leftover from sending a brittle Christmas ornament the kids made out of salt dough to their uncle? Well I did anyway...The bubble wrap was the easiest to secure with some clear packing tape. They started popping right away. They rolled and jumped for the next 20 minutes seeing how many people they could fit on a 1ft. by 2 ft. area.  Note to self buy more bubble wrap! You might not have guessed it but taking your finger and intently popping bubble wrap has some added benefits. It's most useful in developing fine motor skills that are used in writing, coloring, using a utensil, buttoning, zipping and tying, just to name a few.

Moving onto the contact paper. Securing it was a little trickier than the bubble wrap.  But having a strip of packing tape ready helped immeasurably. The kids were so fun to watch. It was like Christmas morning. The baby was just as excited to join in the fun as were the older kids. They threw off their shoes and socks to really feel the stickiness and as kids do enjoyed the simplicity of being in the moment. That's a lesson we can all learn something from. Try to be in the moment more often. Now that school is swinging back into action we need to remember how fun learning is. Time passes more quickly everyday and I want to be certain that in those small moments I had the chance to enrich their lives. Thank you Ooey Gooey Lady® you are a genius!