Rainbow pasta sensory box

Here is another one of our recent sensory boxes. 

I took some pasta, I found these great wheel shapes, and dyed them colours of the rainbow. You can dye by taking your pasta, rice etc put them in a zip lock bag with 1 tbs colour (I used liquid water colour bought from a daycare supply store) and 1 1/2 tbs of vinegare34d and mix. Once the pasta has been nicely coloured lay it out on a flat surface to dry, I put mine on backing sheets. 

I think they look wonderfully awesome and the kids that have come around to play with it I think agree as it took up a lot of their attention. I added some clear cups (old apple sauce containers) some tall tub-like containers (these are for breast milk storage but in preschool we also have used those cheep gerber baby bottles) and occasionally some other bowls and shovels. 

The rainbow pasta was a great way for Baby T to explore the colours of the rainbow and begin to recognize them. We sang songs and played games with the colours. She still has not mastered it though as this is not her focus of interest right now and I don't push it if it's not what she wants to learn. I doubt she will enter elementary school not knowing her colours so why drill it into her right now? 

Baby T does however like to fill and pour with the cups and tubes. She also likes to transport the pasta. So to facilitate that but not get frustrated with finding little piles of pasta round the house I offered her a larger bowl to transport the pasta to. I also remind her that we keep that pasta in the box or in the bowl when we play with it and she seems good with that reminder. 

So there you have a very pretty little sensory box that lasted in our house for well over a month maybe it was two months! I have kept the pasta and stared to use it for other play activates which I hope to share soon. 


To see our other sensory boxes look here or check the labels on at the top of the bar to your right under sensory. 

'Truths' that become norms that become discourse that then become 'mommy wars'

Just going through my university notes from my child development course which was one of the first courses I completed in my road to becoming an Early Childhood Educator and had to share. 


Here is the excerpt retyped direct from my note book: 


*Foucault suggests that when we view knowledge as a truth it becomes a dominant discourse  in which we are unable to see another possibility. 


'truths' then become powerful by then creating norms that regulate behaviour, exclude and separate people and ideas. 


Practices that bring to life the 'truths' of child development, Janet Gore (1998) 
*Normalisation: comparing children to standard or developmental norm 
*Exclusion: using 'truths' as a way of seeing behaviours as desirable or undesirable 
*Classification: using labels to classify children on the basis of developmental norms 
*Regulation: using truths to regulate what we do with children (e.g. developmentally appropriate practice, best practice) 




Reading this tonight made me realize how this translates very well into parenting and  how we create norms within different parenting circles. These norms such as the most appropriate way a child should sleep - in their own bedroom v.s. co-sleeping  become polar positions on 'best practice'.  All these created 'truths' seem to me to be major factors in mommy wars. 


Just wanted to share. I love Foucault! 

Reflective teaching, living, parenting

I wanted to do a few posts on some of my teaching practices/philosophies that have transferred to my parenting and helped me. In an effort not to talk 'at' you I am trying to make it a conversation - which is hard when I am the only one having it with imaginary you! 


Would you say you are reflective on what you do?  Being a reflective teacher helped me in so many ways from not getting into a teaching rut, or not over stressing about my abilities to help me be at peace with who I am as a teacher and how I do things in the class but also in life. 

The idea of being reflective transfers to my parenting nicely and I believe it has helped me accept the choices I have made and how I can move forward from bad days/ choices to be the best parent and person I can be. It seems we as a culture are always trying to obtain that 'perfect' in our life be it in parenting or otherwise. When I reflect on what I am doing I often find the balance that works for me and see the pitfalls of achieving someone else's ideals or an illusion of what is 'best practice' or dominant discourse in the North American Culture which I live in. 


So enough of that let me explain what works for me. At some point int he day I reflect, it used to be on my bus ride home as a teacher and now it is whilst I put Baby T to bed. I go over the great things that happened that day, the things I am proud of and excited to do again. I often think about how I can tweak whatever I did as a variation or experiment to see how it might go differently. Then I go over anything that happened that I might not feel so great about. More often then not it ends up being a guidance thing but sometimes it might be personal struggel. If I am stumped I will look up some resources to see what they say, talk to a colleague/ fellow mommy friend - knowledge is power right? I end with thoughts of how I foresee the next day going (positive thinking works wonders for me), what we have planned how I hope to do something different in hopes of improving our experiences. The whole process does not take me long maybe ten minutes or a half hour if I am looking into something. 

At the end of the day I am looking at what I am proud of and what I can improve for that day.  Above all if I take the time to see if my 'not so great' moments are huge issues to work out or not ones that won't effect myself or family in the long run. I don't let myself dwell on things and if I am not successful the next day I try again. It's not about getting things perfect, that is not possible in my opinion, but it's about accepting what happened, forgiving myself and moving forward thoughtfully. You are only human even if you are a teacher or parent so just look forward don't let a not so great moment become the status quo instead look past it and how you can be better - what ever better looks like to you. 

Sensory Box Explorations

Oh how I love the sensory box and kids tend to love them so much they spend a fair amount of time exploring them. Sensory boxes can be any kind of box, bin, or container full of fun items that engage the senses you know, touch, sound, smell and sometimes taste (for Taya taste is still important at 20 months!)


We have had a few over the past year so I have a little catch up to do on this post and in the future I hope to post one at a time as we are doing them. 


We started when Taya was about 9 months but you could start way sooner - there are so many possibilities and if you think about it a bath is a sensory experience too. 

Taya playing with water coloured ice cubes (water colours wash out way better then food colouring). I used IKEA fish and flower ice cube trays

we added a little water with the ice cubes which melted after a little while in the sun

Once Baby T was walking I asked my wonderful babydaddy to build me a sensory table (I am lucky he is handy!). Baby T was very used to having a sensory box on the floor but she would almost always want to sit in it amongst the play. Really though who wouldn't want to explore it while sitting in it what ever it is?! With her standing over the box it changed the experience and what she did with the items in the box. We still on occasion will take the tub and put it on the floor for her to explore. 

Here is the box filled with rolled oats which was great for her to explore in her hand and mouth! I added pine cones, they made a great sound when pouring oats over.

Here was our Christmas sensory box. I put garlands, bells, ornaments, candy cane decorations. It was fun for the holidays and was a great place for her to explore christmas stuff without taking everything off our tree! 

One thing to keep in mind with sensory items is to start simple. Coloured sand is beautiful but to a child regular sand is amazing - in fact try really looking at it again it is just as intriguing as coloured sand. Keep the scoops and containers minimal or just pick one to start. Once the initial investigation has taken place slowly add more intriguing items to the box. This extends the child's experience their knowledge of the items and makes it possible to use the boxes for longer periods of time. Another thing to remember that it can possibly be overwhelming to be presented with a box full of a sensory item and many tools which then might dictate the type of play that occurs. 

Through a sensory box children learn: 

Math Concepts 

By playing with cups, spoons etc they discover the idea of volume, more, less, full, empty, weight.  

Science concepts 

What happens if..... (fill in the blank) or what is happening (referring to melting, changing colours etc) 

The photos above our a bunch of the boxes we have done so far. I have our current sensory box to post shortly but wanted to get these one out there. Hope you try your own they are lots of fun! 

Sticky Pictures

This is one of my favourite activities as their are so many possibilities for what you can do and they look so beautiful! 


The idea behind sticky pictures when we did them as an activity in preschool was that it was the precursor to using glue. By using a sticky surface the child experiences how they can place items on it and that they stay put. The child can either choosing to just explore the idea of sticking/unsticking, placing items in specific places to create spaces of interest, to just explore dumping items or all of these explorations together. Though the exploration is great for the toddler crowd it also is an amazing one for older children especially is you create more complex patterns, mosaics or pictures. 

I set this one up for three littles to do together- it was fun! 

I set this one up for two littles and it was an Easter time so there is an egg and rabbits etc

The 'sticky paper' is actually contact paper which you would normally use stick on shelving or drawers to protect the surface (I also saw someone using it to line their entire fridge on pininterest so that when it's dirty you just peel away!). I purchase our contact paper at the local dollar store or hardware store. Cut to size and tape onto a surface or cut out a shape on a pice of pater and stick the contact paper to that so that the child then sticks items within that shape. 

Look at that fine motor skill! Picking up and placing small items is great for working that pincher grasp. 

Another great look at fine motor and placement skills developing 

The end results in my opinion are beautiful, I actually have a hard time taking them down and disposing of them. 

The items I usually have on hand for sticking are: foam pieces, sequins, paper punch outs from whole punches or craft punches, pieces of cut up straws, plastic bread bag clips, plastic lids, scraps of coloured tissue, scraps of gift wrap... the list goes on and there is really no limit. 

So what is so great about the fine motor skills and pincher grasp? They work the small muscles in the hand which eventually will be strong enough and help hold pencils and pens so essentially this is a prewriting exercise! Ha who would have thought that sticking stuff was beneficial in learning to write and more so then worksheets! (ahem FYI I loath worksheets both personally and as a teacher)