“Mama, can you stop cleaning? I want to do a fun craft.”, said my 4 year old.
Staying at home with your kids sometimes means you need to get creative and set up fun activities and crafts for them to do while you get chores or work done.
We love sensory play activities and one of our favorite activities are sensory bags. They’re so easy to set up and you can make them with pretty much any theme your kids are into. Plus they’re simple enough for the little ones to play with and engaging enough for the older kiddos to have fun too.
Kids love all things squishy and feeling different textures; and this is one of the reasons why sensory bags are so fun! You can fill sensory bags with hand soap, gel, shaving foam, whipping cream or cool whip to give it a texture the kids will love to press on. You can add any craft supplies you have at home and have the kids make shapes with them. You can also do a scavenger hunt where they kids have to mark on a sheet the items they discover in the bags. The possibilities are endless!
We have make sensory bags with themes, like this this Olaf sensory bag and this build a Christmas tree sensory bag. Other times we just put lots of glitter, foam shapes and sparkly things and let the kids use their imagination.
You can even involve them in the process and let them chose what items they’d like in the sensory bags. One key aspect to make sensory bags successful is to tape them to a table or the floor so the kids can’t open them and spill the contents and also so it’s easier to move the shapes around.
For this sensory bag we decided to go with a winter theme. We found winter themed craft supplies and added them to the bag. To make it for more for my oldest kiddo, I made this printable (get it here for free) of the different foam shapes we added. Once she found it, she just circled it on the sheet and once complete she got to help her sister find the shapes.
If you have more than one child, I recommend you make each one their own sensory bag.
I Spy Winter Wonderland Sensory Bag
Materials:
- Blue colored shaving cream (or use whip cream with a couple of 1 drop of blue food coloring)
- Fam snow flakes covered with glitter
- Small foam craft balls in the colors of silver, white and blue (found at Michaels)
- Winter themed confetti
- White or silver glitter
- 1 gallon Ziploc bag
- Packing Tape
Instructions:
Fill a one gallon Ziploc bag about half of the way full with blue tinted shaving cream.
Add in winter themed decorations such as large glitter covered snowflakes, craft confetti featuring snowmen, trees, snowflakes and stars, as well as some glittery craft foam balls (silver, white and blue). You can put in some white or silver glitter as well to add some extra sparkle.
Get as much air as possible out of the Ziploc bag and close tightly.
Use packing tape to seal the top of the bag to prevent leaks and the little ones from opening the bag.
Download and print this free printable and have your child look for the items on the I Spy Winter Wonderland worksheet. Circle the shapes as they are found.
Let the little ones explore, enjoy and have fun! You can even save this bag and play with it again another day.
Hope you love it as much as we do!
I Spy Winter Wonderland Sensory Bag Creation
Save this sensory play activity by pinning this image:
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