Sensory Play Hack

Sensory play is a type of play that activates and stimulates a child’s senses. These senses are how they learn about the world around them and make sense of the many new things they’re experiencing each day.

Often, sensory play focuses on touch...which for any mom, means a mess.

To be honest, I had been putting it off because of the mess. We have turf in the backyard, so anything outside would have to be cleaned up and I was too embarrassed to take them (and their mess) to the park to experiment....but then one day, I had a genius idea....contain the mess, making clean-up (more of) a breeze.

All you need is a fitted crib sheet (or two in the case of twins) and something to hold the sheets upright. Dining chairs were perfect (see picture below). For a shared play space, I could have used a full or queen fitted sheet, but the girls are looped together for so many things we do, I wanted to make sure they had individual play spaces.

I put uncooked rice in one box and beans in the other box, along with some big kitchen utensils for stirring and Lovevery stacking cups for scooping. What a great way for the girls to fill time, play independently, and explore with their senses with a fairly easy clean-up for me. I can imagine little boys with dump trucks, bulldozers and backhoes scooping dried beans or popcorn kernels, as well, with their trucks in the contained play area.

Picture below of our setup: