My children love any sort of sensory play. They get so much out of playing with different materials. I just knew they would love to try the #whatsinmytray sensory walk from Gratnells Learning Rooms. We were sent some lovely brightly coloured trays and all the material to fill them to make this really fun.
It was a horrible grey day out and this was the perfect activity to keep the kids entertained. Setting up the trays is half the fun – especially using the shaving foam. The other two children were busy when we got started but soon flocked to see what we were doing when they heard the shaving foam.
Our trays were filled with:
- Pasta shapes
- Bubble wrap
- Shredded paper
- Shaving foam
- Cotton wool
You could use anything you have in the house or school setting. The best thing is you don’t need to buy any special equipment to get started.
The materials look so bright and colourful. A nervous child might need to start with something not too scary looking. Some children hate they idea of getting messy so may need to warm up to the idea of shaving foam or may not be ready to attempt it. Mine just got stuck straight in! Mess has never bothered them – unfortunately!
I think the contrast in textures is brilliant. You get hard crunchy pasta, then soft shredded paper. I meant to finish with the water to wipe off the shaving foam but accidentally put them the wrong way round.
Of course, some of these materials can be very slippy so you might need to hold a hand or be ready, especially with younger children.
They spent another half an hour planning their own idea to fill the trays. They used shredded newspaper, ice from the freezer, tin foil, shampoo and dry lentils. They also want to try using slime and oobleck. Maybe next week!
Gratnells Learning Rooms, pride themselves on creating and sharing some fantastic tray based activities to light the spark of excitement in the learning process for young children. You can find some of their other What’s In My Tray learning activities here: http://learning-rooms.com/whats-in-my-tray/
