xpost in Lounge- Need ideas for 1)a sensory bag and 2)a sensory table

[gatorsmom]

Our school is small and private and does not have the funds for this so I offered to purchase a sensory table with filler materials and little toys as well as put together a sensory bag for the class room. I'm doing this mainly for my son, Greenbean, who has mild Sensory Processing Disorder but we'll leave it there when he moves on. I'm trying to find easy ways for him to soothe himself without being disruptive. I've gotten the approval from the Principal and the Preschool Teacher. So, I just need to put these together. And I need to do it in a week (thus the xpost in Lounge).

Ideas for either? I thought of different themes for the sensory table like:

1)water with wet shaped sponges, small bubble wands and maybe some of the slushy stuff that turns bathwater into slushy- like material (I need to find a link and make sure it's nontoxic)
2)dry beans with toys thrown in
3)sand with summer toys thrown in
4)rice with little toys thrown in
3)autumn leaves
4)snow when it gets cold

But I need help thinking of some fun little toys to throw in with the other materials. Ideas?

Also, I need ideas for an opaque sensory bag. I'm thinking unusual shapes, textures, etc. Any ideas? TIA!

[JTsMom]

-different scraps of textured fabric- silky, bumpy, fuzzy, furry, etc
-how about squishy stress balls?
-is messy ok? shaving cream, pudding, etc?

toys- little cars and trucks, little rakes (even a fork would work), measuring cups, a funnel, spoons, scoops, little plastic animals, little toy people of some sort, little bulldozers, scoop trucks, etc.

[MamaKath]

Great ideas already. When I didn't have funds for an official sensory table, I used a plastic underbed sweater storage with lid filled with split pease. I could put a lid on it and put it away as needed. Alternated the kinds of toys (they were always excited to see what was out that day, much more so than what material it was in), but overall found the kids found that specific texture and a pleasant pouring sound worked well so stuck with split peas. One year I got a Step2 water/sand table and used split peas in that.

I also tried rice, sand, rice, water, ice, jello, shaving cream, moon sand, pasta, shredded paper and cheerios in these smaller sensory center boxes (always washable plastic, clear if possible, always with available lid for quick storage [no sink in classroom]). The kids favorites were split peas and moon sand. Moon sand was a pain to clean up though, lol. You could also try foam (either cut up foam like in a gymnastic pit or smaller foam type peanuts), fabric of different textures (long pieces so they scrunch haphazardly in), even long strips of newsprint.

I found the worst was cereal as it got crunched under feet and attracted ants quickly. Next was probably jello as it can get sticky.

Not sure on a sensory bag.

[acmom]

When I taught preK, we got feed corn from a farm and put that in our sensory table in the fall, which was fun. When we did leaves, we also added other fall items such as acorns, helicopter seeds from maple trees, sunflower seeds (we actually put in a whole head with some tweezers for kids to remove the seeds). We also did some large magnets and magnetic items to find and pick up from some kind of filler (rice, sand, beans, etc.). Magnetic letters are another fun item to hide in a filler. We did most of the other materials you listed too - when we did water, we would often color it. If you do pasta, I would suggest small shapes (elbows, ditalini, mini wheels, etc.), as the large ones (ziti, penne, etc.) can get surprisingly loud when several kids are playing!

HTH! I think it is great you are providing that! I'm sure the whole class will benefit from it!

ETA: Those magic noodles (the biodegradable packing peanuts) might be fun to try too. You also may want to check on allergies as that limited us some years on what we could put in the sensory table.