Frog pond water sensory tub: Guest Post From One Perfect Day

I am so excited that Ness from One Perfect Day agreed to guest post in my absence.  I absolutly love her beautiful blog, and I know you will too!  She comes up with some really great activities with her 3 year old boy, R.  I am so happy that she decided to share one of her sensory trays today. 

Take it away, Ness!

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Hi, I’m Ness, and I blog at One Perfect Day. I’m so excited to be guest posting here at Dirt and
Boogers today, one of my favorite blogs! I love all the fun, creative play ideas that Amanda
shares. Sometimes I wish we lived closer – I think our boys would have some amazing play
dates!

At One Perfect Day, our tagline is “Play. Learn. Create. Explore.” The activity that I’m sharing
here today features all of those elements. My three year old son, R, is very much into frogs
at the moment. Almost every day he announces “Frogs are my favorite animal” and he is
constantly saying that he would love to own one as a pet. His other great love is water play.
He will spend hours with a water sensory tub or even just the garden hose. So, I thought
I would combine his two great loves, frogs and water, and I created this frog pond water
sensory tub.

This sensory tub contains:
Plastic frogs
Lilly pads
Pebbles and stones
Glass beads
Various containers and utensils for pouring and scooping

I also added a plastic drop sheet underneath the tub, since we were doing this indoors. It
just happened to be blue which added to whole effect of the watery scene.

R was thrilled when he saw the tub and immediately dived in and started rearranging all the
pieces.

He made waves and ripples in the water.

He made up stories about the frogs and their little pond.

Eventaully, R started to use the various containers and utensils I’d provided. He loves to
scoop and pour with all his sensory tubs, but especially with water! I put out a ladel, a
scooper, a bowl and an empty yogurt container.

He carefully transferred the frogs, pebbles and lilly pads out of the tub and into a mixing
bowl.

Then, everything was poured back in!

R happily played for almost an hour! This activity provided lots of opprotunities for
language extensions as we talked about the different types and colors
of the frogs, the habitat they live in, and the pond plant life. There was sensory
exploration and we talked about the smooth pebbles, the cool water and the
splashing sound made by the water. All that pouring and scooping meant that there was
some great fine motor skills being developed as well. Most of all though,
this was a whole lot of fun!

If you enjoyed this post, you can find us on Facebook or visit our blog One Perfect Day.
We’d love to see you there and share more fun ways to play!