Last week, we started off our new toddler play series – A-Z of Sensory Play. Our journey through the alphabet began with an A is for Apple Scented Sensory Bin. Today’s activity focuses on the letter B and we decided to whip up and enjoy in bird seed sensory play.
Autumn has begun and we have started our preparations to invite birds into our garden throughout winter. Each fall we leave bird seed out so that birds know that food is plentiful in our garden.
Despite natural food being readily available at the moment, the birds that do visit our feeders in autumn are scouting. If the birds discover that our garden is worth visiting, they will remember.
When the cold weather starts, the birds will return. We have therefore been stocking up on bird feed which led to us creating a B is for Bird Seed Sensory Play activity.
This has to be the quickest sensory bin to set up. I simply poured a bag of wild bird seed into our green box and added the same fine motor tools that we used in our Apple Scented Sensory Bin. Activities that involved two seconds of preparation for lots of uninterpreted play have to be my favourite.
As with all our sensory activities I invited my son to explore the bird seed in their way. I didn’t show him what he could do with the sensory bin base although I obviously supervised the activity at all times and ensured that the bird seed did not go near his mouth.
At first my son loved to explore the texture of the bird seed with their hands. It didn’t take them long before he realised there were different types of bird seed and we explored the shape and colour of each variety of seed.
Our Prepara Super Scoopers were the preferred tool to transfer the seed from the green tray to the colourful plant pots. They are a perfect size for little hands and collected a lot of seed in one go.
The Helping Hands Fine Motor Toolset and Jumbo Tweezer also came in handy. Each item strengthens the hand muscles in different ways in preparation for when our toddler is ready to write in the future.
Tidying up our Bird Seed Sensory Play activity was easy too. Any split seeds on the grass were left out for the birds to feast on. The rest of the seed I poured back into the packet ready to be used to refill our bird feeders.
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