It is almost Chinese New Year and we have been having a bit of fun and working on our fine motor skills with our newest sensory bin.
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What you'll need:
- a plastic box or pin
- dry noodles
- red lentils
- chopsticks
- learning chopsticks
- Cleverstix
- jumbo tweezers
- little bowls and spoons
I set up the sensory bin for the kids then invited them over to dive in. There are a variety of different types of chopsticks there for them to try out, with no pressure at all to master them. The tweezers are probably the easiest to use, then the chopsticks with the finger loops, then the learning chopsticks and finally the regular ones. The bowls and spoons were also there to scoop up noodles and to move them from place to place.
Ethan and Ivy dove right in and were so happy to explore the noodles and to try out all of the different types of chopsticks.
If they asked for help I showed them how to use the different chopsticks, but didn't pressure them to use them properly. Ethan was very interested in how they all worked, so I would model the different techniques for him and assist him in holding them properly then let him have a go. Ivy was happy to just play around with all of the different things in the bin and wasn't worried at all about how they worked.
Ivy did like using the spoon to mix everything around in the sensory bin and to try to pick up the noodles and lentils that way. She then picked some up and put them into the small bowls to play with in there.
Of course once the noodles started coming out of the bin, then they really started to come out of the bin! I wouldn't want you to think that sensory bins are always a neat and tidy affair in this house! But when this happens I let them have fun making a mess for a minute, then we all tidy up together. They know that play can only continue once we've tidied everything up!
I love this sensory bin, it was so easy to set up and the fine motor skills that the kids can work on is fantastic. It's great to try out chopsticks in a setting where there is no pressure and they are free to explore and drop things everywhere. They'll be eating real noodles with chopsticks in no time!
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