Kids Coop - Citrus Sensory activities

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Its Kids Coop time, please link up your kids activity posts and check out what others have been up to. This week I am linking the following:

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(Goblin is 44 months)

Last week we had a citrus day. I bought some lemons, limes and oranges and made a series of activities. Like at his Montessori nursery I left them out around the room so Goblin could choose which he engaged with. 

My activities included a letter learning and mark making activity; a scissor practice and letter learning activity; and a fine motor grating activity. 

Goblin wasn't interested in the two letter activities and spent only a short time on the grating. What he really enjoyed was the hands on smell, touch, taste and sight activity. 

This is such a simple activity. I simply cut up some fruit and squeezed some juice from each into a shot glass. Then I let Goblin taste the juices, and encouraged him to smell and touch the fruit. And then we ate some. He drank the orange juice first and enjoyed it. But he screwed up him face when he tried the lemon and wasn't daft enough to get stung a second time by trying the lime juice, but he did smell it. 

He wanted more of the orange juice and asked me to squeeze some more. He really enjoyed watching me squeeze the juice and talked about it a lot later in the day. I realised that another learning aspect to this is the child gets to see where fruit juice comes from. 

The final activity I'd laid out was sensory play with tapioca gloop. It is literally tapioca boiled in water for 30 minutes with food colouring. It is seriously gloopy and Goblin was not impressed. 

However not to be defeated I moved the bowl to the bathroom and had a play myself. As I was squishing it through my hands Goblin came and joined me and asked if he could add some water. This was a really good idea because it made it less slimey. When I scooped some out they looked like mini water beads. It reminded me of BlogMeMom's post on edible water beads which uses giant tapioca pearls.

I dashed down stairs and brought up a sieve and some big spoons (and a whisk at Goblin's request). And we had a good old splash about with the tapioca and ended up stripping off and throwing at each other while in the bath. 

Today was definitely a sensory play day rather than a letter learning and mark making day. I'm glad I prepared a selection of activities so Goblin could gravitate towards those that appeal to his current needs. 

And now to the linky