Teaching Mama

playing, creating, and learning at home

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

facebook twitter pinterest instagram googleplus email bloglovin
  • Home
  • About
    • Disclosure
    • Privacy Policy
    • Meet the Team
  • Contact
  • Toddlers
    • Sensory Play
    • Fine Motor Skills
    • Gross Motor Skills
    • Toys
  • Preschoolers
    • Homeschooling
    • Alphabet
      • Printable Alphabet Packets
    • Fine Motor Skills
    • Gross Motor Skills
    • Math
    • Music
    • Reading
      • Book Activities
    • Science
    • Technology
  • Shop
    • Your Account
    • Cart
    • Checkout
  • Printables Club
  • Member Login

Dinosaur Swamp & Sensory Play

by Angela Thayer 3 Comments

To close our final day on dinosaurs this week, we did an activity inspired by one of my awesome readers! (By the way, you guys are really the best!)

We did a sensory activity and made a swamp for our dinosaurs. To make the swamp, we just mixed cornmeal with water.

Mixing We thought the swamp felt slimy, grainy, and squishy.

Swamp Then we added dinosaurs to our swamp. This was great for imaginary play. In our swamp, the big dinosaur was trying to find the hidden dino eggs (marbles) and baby dinos.

Dinosaur Swamp Land!

Digging for Eggs

This activity goes great with the chapter I am sharing with you today from my ebook–Sensory Play for Preschoolers. Today I’m not going to share a checklist of things children need to accomplish before Kindergarten. Sensory play isn’t a skill you acquire, but instead it’s a way for kids to explore the world they live in.

Sensory Play for Preschoolers

Sensory play uses the five senses: seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling. Starting as babies, kids learn about the world around them using their senses. It’s a very natural way to learn. As children grow, children’s senses are their most familiar way to explore and process new information. Research shows that sensory play builds nerve connections in the brain’s pathways, which helps children complete more complex learning tasks.

This type of play is great for developing the following:

  • language development
  • cognitive growth
  • problem solving skills
  • social interaction
  • fine & gross motor skills

I also love that these activities teach children sensory attributes, such as hot & cold or smooth & rough. Lastly, these activities are great for calming an anxious or frustrated child.

So what are some sensory activities? If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you’ll notice we do a lot of sensory activities. They are fun, engaging activities that focus on the senses. A sensory activity could be a bin full of dry beans with toys to dig and find. Or it could be simply playing with play dough. Below are a few of our absolute favorite sensory activities!

Ice11

Kool Aid Play Dough

Water Beads

Cloud Dough

Bath Paint with Shaving Cream

Which sensory activity do you love? Is there a sensory activity you think we should try? I would love to hear from you!

This blog post is part of a series on how to successfully teach your preschooler at home that will be put compiled into an ebook.  There are 8 components of preschool that I will be writing about: alphabet, math, writing, literacy, motor skills, art, sensory, and social development. Each Friday I will share my ideas for one subject. The published ebook will include a detailed schedule and activities to do at home.

Related Posts

  • Dinosaur Sensory TubDinosaur Sensory Tub
  • Fine Motor Skills: Clothespin DinosaursFine Motor Skills: Clothespin Dinosaurs
  • DIY Dinosaur FossilsDIY Dinosaur Fossils
  • Dinosaur Ice EggsDinosaur Ice Eggs
  • Colorful Alphabet Sensory BinColorful Alphabet Sensory Bin
  • Floating Flowers Sensory BinFloating Flowers Sensory Bin

Sharing is caring!

143 shares
  • Facebook5
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Imaginary Play, Sensory Play Tagged With: dinosaurs, letter d, sensory bin

Comments

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    CommentLuv badgeShow more posts

  1. Emma says

    August 24, 2013 at 6:37 am

    Looks like a fun (and delightfully messy) way to play. I love the “dinosaur swamp” idea!
    Emma recently posted…Frozen DinosMy Profile

    Reply
  2. Teaching Mama says

    April 5, 2013 at 10:08 pm

    Thanks, Gina for the idea!! So glad to hear you fixed the problem with the balloons. Very creative! I don’t think we have Angel Delight/whip, but I don’t know for sure. I’ll have to see! Love your comments-have a good weekend!

    Reply
  3. Gina says

    April 5, 2013 at 11:44 am

    Ha-ha, that looks very familiar. We have done this with I think you guys call it cornstarch as well which is always a joy. I think cous-cous would be fun and warm as well. Sensory play is cool. My kids are older but still love it. I got around my balloon problem by mixing gelatine with warm water and adding some Angel Delight and cooling it in the fridge. I put dinosaurs in a muffin tin with rounded bottoms to the cake spaces and spooned in some of my gloop. When it was set, and it set very firm, I took it out and put the dinos in upside down and added more gloop. So they are sort of egg-shaped and will taste lovely to my kids and be an interesting texture for them. I think i could have done it with warm milk but I am new to gelatine. I don’t know if you guys have Angel Delight or Angel Whip, it is a powdered solution that comes in a fair sized sachet and you add cold milk, whisk and set it in the fridge and makes a mouse that mostly tastes of chemicals if you are a grown up and tastes delightful if you are a kid.

    Reply
about teaching mama
sensory play crafts printables fall winter spring summer

Search Teaching Mama

Archives


Copyright © 2023 Teaching Mama · Privacy Policy · Disclosure

Copyright © 2023 · Teaching Mama on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

143 shares
  • 5

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

Teaching Mama
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Cookie Policy

More information about our Cookie Policy