A few weeks ago, I gave her this:
There's between a teaspoon and a tablespoon of each thing--barley, rice, couscous, macaroni, oatmeal, steel cut oats, white peppercorns, flour, salt, brown sugar, oat bran, lentils, popcorn, rolled oats, chick peas, kidney beans, pinto beans, and a cinnamon stick thrown in for good measure. It seems like a lot, but it was really just the tiniest bit from each container.Then I gave her a chopstick, a fan-shaped paintbrush, and our plastic dinosaurs. I have no rationale. That's just what I grabbed.
Ninna played with this for a long, long time. I was walking around doing chores, which gave her the opportunity to take advantage of the one flaw in my (lack of a) plan. Do you see it in the photo above? The cause of my downfall?
The glass of water. And the water pitcher. By the time I came back up from switching the laundry, the dry goods were no longer dry, and there was a soup of the most absolutely disgusting variety sloshing around in that cake tray. I don't have a particularly weak stomach, and I was gagging. I spent the entire clean-up time thinking of my friend Jill whose gag reflex is, um...quite insane. And then I laughed because Jill is a new mom, and she has yet to engage in such amusing tasks. Jill, your day will come, my friend.
All in all, aside from the soup situation, I'd recommend this as a cheap, multi-textured sensory activity. Just scan the area around the tray before you leave the room...
4 comments:
I love the idea of including several items - although it does allow for a much larger mess than the tablespoon or so of corn meal I tend to allow my kids! I bet she LOVED making that soup!
Hmm...I can think of a lot of new-mom-related activities that would be more gag-inducing than some wet barley and macaroni (like, starting with giving birth).
I used to give my kids a pitcher of water and little cups and say they were "playing montessori"...this looks very playing montessori-ish.
Andrea--true, I guess I meant the sort of little gag-inducing treats that an independently-moving child leaves for you :). I promise you, though, it was really gag-inducing...it looked pretty much exactly like vomit. I left that out of my description, but you're right--the idea of wet barley and macaroni is not so bad. This, however, was truly nauseating.
"Playing montessori" is very cute.
Oh, the old gag reflex. I can't believe yours finally reared its head! Regardless of the unexpected and gross result, I think this is such a great activity! J loves to play with his food, which I encourage (to the chagrin of his grandparents), and I am adding this to my list of future activities (sans the water pitcher within reach). Maybe if he was 16, I'd take issue with him smooshing avocado all over his face, but for now I figure he's learning about texture as well as taste.
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