February's Sensory Box

For this month's Sensory Box I used shredded gift bag filler, heart erasers, heart noise makers, heart measuring cups, foam hearts, and foam words. The words are; love, hugs, and kisses. I had Jacob start exploring inside the box while I observed him. I wanted to see what he would do with the items on his own.

First thing he did was to grab the noise maker and use it to pick up the bag filler. He called the noise makers cranes! He lifted the bag filler with his "crane" and dropped it outside of the box. (Messy month!!) I could not believe that he looked at a red, white and pink box filled with hearts and he saw a construction project! He never ceases to amaze me!

A Crane?

He went to town playing in the box! He had so much fun picking up the filler and dropping it outside of the box. He made all the sound effects of a crane. He then used the heart shaped measuring cups as dump trucks and went around and picked up the filler. He gave me one and assigned me to picking up while he used the "crane" to drop more off.

After a while I pulled out some of the heart shapes and put them on the floor. I then started counting them. Jacob took over counting the hearts. I suggested that he look for more hearts and add those to his row and count them all. He did this without protest. He has really become a good counter. Then he used the "crane" to put them away.

Later I pulled out a word from the box. I pointed out the H and told Jake that the word was hug. I then modeled what I wanted him to do. I looked for more hug words in the box. If I found a word that was not hug I pointed out the first letter and showed him it was not hug, then threw it back in the box. I laid all the words out and then counted them. After that I told him there were six hug words so I needed to give him six hugs! (Hey, this month is about love right?)

I had him do it on his own next. He found the word kiss. Then I had to give him 5 kisses! :) He didn't have any trouble looking through the box, finding a word and determining if it was the word he was looking for. This is a great way to develop literacy.

I am anticipating many more fun days with this Sensory Box!

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