Sensory Bags

It’s hard to find activities that appeal to both our six-month-old and our two-year-old, but sensory bags work for both girls!

Have you heard of them? They’re a clean way to let your kiddos squish, squeeze, and explore. There are lots of examples of sensory bags floating around Pinterest, but I first came across the idea on Growing a Jeweled Rose.

Sensory bags are cheap and easy. We took sandwich bags (with zippers) and filled them with interesting and colorful trinkets: glow-in-the-dark stars, beads, robot stickers, gemstones, glitter, confetti, water beads, foam numbers. You could be more strategic with your content. You could base everything around a theme. You could have red jewels, pink foam hearts, and “I love you” stickers for Valentine’s Day, for instance. Or shamrock or clover shapes for St. Patrick’s Day.

After you have your trinkets, add your liquid: hair gel, body wash, shaving cream, aloe, lotion, or just water.

I liked the the lavender body wash. It was tinted purple (fun!), smelled nice, and  was translucent enough that our toddler could hunt for the different objects we’d thrown inside. (We’ve been working on number identification, so we focused on the sparkly numbers.)

If you’d like to explore color mixing with your toddlers, you could use shaving cream and add a few drops of food coloring.

Unless you want hair gel or body wash all over your house, it’s probably in your best interest to seal your bag with packaging tape.

We shared these with our play group on Wednesday, and all the tots seemed to enjoy the clean and tactile play!

I know how you all love babies, and guess what? Sensory bags were a big hit with our little six-month-old. Seriously, folks, she played with it for almost an hour while I was fixing dinner. That’s crazy! Of course she wanted to eat it, too. So I taped it to the tray of her high chair. That way there was lots of squishy fun and zero chewing on the plastic bag/choking hazard.

Want to make your own? Here’s what you’ll need. Enjoy!

Sensory Bag Supplies:

1) Ziptop bag and tape to seal the zipper.

2) Something smushy (hair gel, aloe, body wash, shaving cream)

3) Trinkets

Need more ideas for sensory play? Check out our bean bin or read all about our love for water beads.

While you’re here, why not like our facebook page? We love seeing new readers, and facebook is the first place we post updates and news about giveaways!