Little Brain Builders

💗💗Officially the month of February! 💗💗

❤️ 10% off our Valentines kit to celebrate! ❤️

💗 DM to order! 💗

As promised lets take a look at the ways we played with our Valentines Sensory Kit and the skills it works on. As a self-confessed geek about this stuff, here’s my take…

Rule no: 1. This is play! So it has to be FUN! Follow their lead and see how they interact with it. 😍

❤️ SCOOP & POUR:

Scoop the rice with the tools provided or with hands & pour the rice into the tray, the heart cup, into the other hand etc. This focuses on hand - eye coordination & controlling of arm & hand movements. E.g. if you move too fast the rice will fall out of the scoop so you have to get it just right.

💗 SPRINKLES & SCRUNCHES

Increase tolerance to textures, build body awareness and tactile discrimination… Sprinkle the rice onto their arms and legs. Let them scrunch it with their hands & ask them what it feels like. “Bumpy,” according to my son.

Sprinkle the rice onto different surfaces & listen to how different they sound. This builds attention and relies on the auditory system.

❤️ PEEK-A-BOO

Bury hands & feet & wait for them to do “peek-a-boo”. This had my son chatting lots & worked on building anticipation, mutual enjoyment, eye contact & increasing body awareness.

💗 HIDE & SEEK / TREASURE HUNT

Hide the buttons and hearts in the rice & let them go on a treasure hunt. This is a lovely way to incorporate object permanence (Knowing something exists even when you can’t see it), tactile discrimination & fine motor skills.

❤️ WRITING & DRAWING

Use this sensory motor approach to build engagement & lay the foundations to handwriting & drawing.

Draw some pre writing patterns in the rice ( -, |, o, +) & see will they copy or imitate them.

Draw faces to increase body awareness & talk about if they are happy, sad etc. to build emotional recognition.

There are lots of way to play with our Sensory Kit while working on so many skill sets. Look out for more ideas over the next while. I’ll be taking a closer look at the petals, the feather and buttons etc.

Thank you to everyone who has ordered so far. Be sure to send me a DM if you would like one.

Fiona

At last! Our Valentines sensory kits are good to go! 🥳 but limited availability! 😔

Free P&P within NI & UK as part of an introductory offer. Or collection from BT8. 🥰

Created with your childs development in mind; Designed by a Paediatric OT. 😊

Make sure to let us know your preferred colour(s) when you order. Also let us know if you want heart sequins through the rice.💗

Payment via bank transfer or cash on collection.👍

I'll be showing the different ways we play with ours and explain what skills we are tapping into along the way. 🧐

There is approx. 400g of rice in my pics for reference. The kit comes with 200g. 🤩

Tray for demonstration purposes only but you can get it

Baking trays and plastic bowls also work great for our kits! 😉

Any questions let me know and be sure to spread the love by sharing! 😘

8 sensory systems? Not just 5? 🤔

Yup that’s right we have 8 sensory systems. 🤯

Each one of the systems play a vital role in how we interact with our environment. 🌎

These systems pick up information from the outside world and relay it to our brains through our central nervous system to help us form a full sensory picture of our environment. 🧠

They help us to connect to our world and to each other. 🤝

To complete everyday activities like talking, driving, cooking etc. 🚗

To help us enjoy life; listening to music, eating food for example. 🎶

We all have our own tolerance for different types of sensory input, or our own sensory preferences.

For example, you may love blasting the music loud while you cook, get ready etc. and it might drive another person nuts, to the point they can’t think. (Swear I’m not talking about my husband and I!) 👀

The thing about sensory systems, is they are not a one size fits all. 🙅 But we’ll get into this more another day. 🧐

Our kids are the same, they have sensory likes and dislikes but our kids’ brains are learning and developing.
They are building their sensory systems almost from scratch and this is why sensory based play is so important. ‼️
It helps to refine and establish their sensory systems. I love to incorporate as many of the sensory systems into play as possible.💚❤️💛🩵💜

What are some of your or your kid’s sensory likes and dislikes? Or how do you get the sensory systems involved in play?🤷‍♀️

Let me know in the comments. 💬