Double the Love: Sensory activity or snack time?!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Sensory activity or snack time?!

I should have guessed it with my big eaters...we couldn't do a sensory activity with food without it turning into snack time! My preK students use to LOVE to play in shaving cream and so I wanted to duplicate that activity for the boys in a safe way. I decided on cool whip! After putting a big dollop of cool whip in the middle of Ayden's high chair tray he, of course, put his fingers right from the mound to his mouth. After tasting it for half a second he literally lunged for the pile with both hands this time! Oh boy! This was not what I was hoping for! I don't give them sweets so I really hoped that they would play with more than they would eat. I then took his hands and showed him how to "play" with it. As you can imagine, that did not go over well, and he went right back to licking the sweet cream from his fingers! Ashton, on the other hand, did play in his dollop for a whole 5-7 seconds before deciding to use his sense of taste for this "hands-on sensory activity". I also tried to show him that it was not just good for eating but he was less than convinced. They were really mad when they saw me return the container to the kitchen! When there was just some melted sugary cream left on their trays they did play in it for a bit and seemed to enjoy it. Overall this was a good activity, but I still would like to avoid giving them sugar so I will have to return to sugar free pudding or find another alternative for now. Here are some pictures from our activity!