Sensory activities with @this_sonny_day

Toddler | Development | | Emma

I’m Emma, since becoming a mother after a long awaited fertility battle to Sonny, two years ago, I have found my happy place, I have found a love for arts and craft and all things play.

Here’s what we have been up to recently:

Sensory pasta farm

Using HiPP Organic's pasta farm, I decided it was perfect to create a play base for Sonny's beloved farm yard animals. Here’s a step by step guide on how you can create your own.

  • Take a tupperware box or sandwich bag and fill with the dry pasta.
  • Add your chosen colour of child friendly paint, mixing to cover all the pasta. If in a box, place lid and shake vigorously, this will ensure coverage. If in a sandwich bag, seal and shake, I find having a little dance whilst doing this helps! If you want several colours, split the pasta across several bags/boxes. You can get your little one involved if you wish, this adapts to messy play and provides fun!
  • Lay the painted pasta out onto grease proof paper, spreading to separate and leave to allow to dry.
  • Set up your activity with a tray or table as the base, somewhere to contain the new fun coloured pasta.
  • Once pasta is dry, add to the area chosen and set up your small world activity around it.
  • Let your little one loose and have fun!

The base provides a unique experience for little hands by encouraging handling & movement, talking about colours and shapes, animal sorting, fine motor skills and, most importantly, fun!

There are lots of fun opportunities with this pasta, you can also try colour matching and animal matching, just colour each animal separately (be prepared to sort through the pasta prior to painting) and set up a suitable fun activity. You can also use the pasta uncoloured for the same fun sensory experience, or mix it up like we did.

Messy dinosaur swamp

Using HiPP's Clean & Green Bubbly Bath, you can create the simplest of fun water play.

  • Using your sink, bath or water tray, set up a dinosaur small world.
  • Fill with water and add the bubble bath, watching the water turn a pleasant green, the perfect green for your swamp!
  • Add your child and let the fun begin.

Lots of children love water play, it is a great sensory environment and is perfect for enhancing concentration and focus. It can spark conversations, building up communication about colour and develops fine motor skills.

You can create darker water by adding food colouring or lighter by adding more water. Lots of fun ways to experiment. It also works well with cornflour, creating a darker sticky oobleck.

Check out our reptile fun!

We hope that you have all the fun should you try these activities, simple play is our favourite way to spend our days.

Please note these activities are not suitable if your child still uses their mouth to explore new senses, you should always use child friendly paint when colouring your base and ALWAYS supervise your child during these activities.