Sensory Tubs- Dinosaurland

I have been super inspired by this awesome mama over at Counting Coconuts who home schools her little boy. I am almost overwhelmed by the coolness of learning activities on her blog. I decided that I needed something consistent for Will to look forward to every week or so. Something new to discover and explore in, and something to keep the TV turned off. With mostly materials that I had laying around the house and a couple trips to the dollar store I made my very first sensory tub! I call it Dinosaurland! Will's eyes got big when I opened the tub and he saw all the rocks. Usually I might have an activity to go along with it, but I thought for the first one I would just let him explore it. He enjoyed digging in the rocks and transferring them from the tub to a bowl with the scoop and lining up the dinos as usual. He also liked collecting the gemstones in a pile. He had a lot of fun! It only held his attention for 10-15 minutes before he was ready to move on to doing something more active. I think next time I will bring it out in the afternoon instead. Usually the mornings seem to be his more active time, and the afternoons he likes to sit and do more activities. I plan to do a new tub every other week or so, so that he has plenty of time to enjoy this one first. I think I probably had way to much fun putting it together too. :)

I used a lot of the same materials that I saw over at Counting Coconuts, but changed it a little bit. Materials used for Dinosaurland:

-two bags of dried pinto beans (layered in the bottom for a digging surprise, plus they look like dinosaur eggs)

-decorative rocks-variety of small and big

-a few scattered gemstones

-scattered wooden beads

-fake leaves

-fake reindeer moss

-magnet letter "D"

-3 plastic dinosaur figures

-wooden scoop

-wooden cup

-large wooden egg

-a hidden piece of string(in case he wanted to string the beads)

...and he later in the afternoon had a lot more fun exploring in it on the floor while adding other objects as well. :)