Wednesday 9 November 2011

Outside my comfort zone

Mr Exuberance and I, with a little help from Miss Belle, have been taking part in the 30 days of Play challenge.

Each day has a different challenge and the idea is to play, with your child, using the challenge as a starting point for an uninterrupted 15 minutes.

So far, we have done reasonably well. We missed a few days but I always knew that we weren't going to do the weekend days and Monday just got tagged onto the weekend.

Anyway, today's challenge was a sensory tub. This is way out of my comfort zone. I'm not quite sure why.

Paint, play dough and mud don't cause me too much trouble providing they stay off carpets and walls but a sensory box. I think the problem is the mess. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a tidy person but those little bits they could go anywhere and it is doubtful that I will ever get round to resorting the box.

There is also the thought of putting your hand into who knows what. Shouldn't be a problem as I've filled the tub but should I ask the children to do something I don't want to do?

Well, I plucked up my courage and made a small sensory tub with a fitted lid. It seemed a bit safer that way.
The contents were

  • shredded paper
  • googly eyes
  • pipe cleaners
  • two small play people
  • a flag
  • paper straws
  • lolly sticks
  • Brio houses
The lid went safely on the box. The next thing I knew was that Miss Belle announced that there was a box in the kitchen with a big spider-the pipe cleaners, of course.

Miss Belle and I settled down with the box. Miss Belle quickly requested glue-sure that wasn't part of the idea. She wanted to use the house blocks and straws to make a church steeple. I can't say that the straws stuck too well. Most of the time was spent making a spider with googly eyes, again, involving large quantities of glue.
So it wasn't so bad. Later, we had a little accident with the cocoa pops. If I can keep my courage up all those cocoa pops that hit the wrong part of the kitchen could be used as the basis for another sensory tub-it would fit in so well with Mike Mulligan and the steam shovel.

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