Sensory Tubs

I feel pretty sure that some people might walk by our library and think "why are they playing?"  Came across a great article about play, so check it out.

http://www.playengland.org.uk/media/202623/best-play.pdf

The best quote I thought was this.

“Play is freely chosen, personally directed, intrinsically motivated behavior that actively engages the child”. This definition draws closely on the work of Bob Hughes and Frank King. Play can be further described as follows: "Play can be fun or serious. Through play children explore social, material and imaginary worlds and their relationship with them, elaborating all the while a flexible range of responses to the challenges they encounter. By playing, children learn and develop as individuals, and as members of the community".

I never in a million years thought that the 5th grade would love play with sensory tubs.  When we introduce students to sensory tubs we do it by introducing them with the 5 senses.  Of course we start in Kindergarten and move up.

We start with the 5 little senses people and of course the tasting sense is OUT.  We might be talking from experience here:-)  So whatever you do don't use any kind of peanut products in your sensory tubs.  

We also show them exactly how to use one, how they sometimes will drop them and how to clean them up.  We have little sweepers and dust pants hanging all around the library.

 This week we introduced the Apple Pie and the Rainforest sensory tubs.  Rainforest had all the little rainforest animals, sticks, coffee beans to smell like a rain forest.  Apple pie had little pom pom balls, pie pans, oatmeal, rice, apple scent and measuring cups.

Stay tuned for more.