Halloween Sensory Play

My kids love sensory play, and I do too. We started making our own slime, play dough, and sensory bins about a year and a half ago and we sure have enjoyed it. 

Sensory play is very calming for both kids and it keeps them engaged longer than anything else. It also helps Korban to overcome his aversion to touching certain textures, gives him plenty of sensory input with the things he enjoys, and helps fine motor skills too. It can get messy at times, but the clean-up really isn't that bad. The benefits of sensory play are definitely worth a few minutes of clean-up for this mama!  Besides, I enjoy it myself. 

I was excited because this Halloween is the first holiday I've gone into with a stash of supplies from the year before. I saved some fun things we had last year, and then I hit some great sales after Halloween and put it all together in a big plastic box for this year. Plus, Grandpa found some really cool stuff or us. He's always helping out with art/sensory stuff for the kids and we are super grateful. I've been pulling it out a little bit at a time to introduce new things to the kids. 

The first thing we made was Hallowern slime. Slime is a huge favorite at our house and I try to keep the supplies on hand at all times. I learned how to make slime at www.growingajeweledrose.com. She has a ton of play recipes!  

For this slime, I put two cups of school glue in a bowl and added two cups very warm water. I used the white glue this time because I found a bunch of it on clearance at Kroger for .19 cents a bottle, but the clear glue makes really cool slime too. I also stirred in some orange food coloring to color it. In another bowl I mixed together 1 and 1/3 cup very warm water and one teaspoon Borax. After both bowls were mixed together, we combined them and stirred. The kids love to do the mixing. Then I let them add a packet of confetti I bought at Hobby Lobby for .49. I was looking for bats, but all they had was spiders. Which was still cool but it looked kind of like big ticks in the slime. 

Gross, huh?  But SO much fun! 

She said she was making a "Halloween face."

He was concentrating on picking the spiders out. If you look closely, he's kind of pulling his hair too. He does that when he's stressed or concentrating really hard. 

Selah brought her elephants to come play in the slime. I love how sensory play is open-ended and helps them to be creative. 

I also made them a couple of new sensory bins: 

This one uses lentils and dried kidney beans as the base as has some little pumpkin toys and foam stickers in it. (I have a huge stash of foam stickers from my clearance shopping last year. Selah liked the candy corn the best.) 

This one uses black beans as the base and has some little prickly ball toys, vampire teeth, a plastic skeleton, and a little cauldron and skull container to scoop beans into. 

Korban liked using the vampire teeth to pick up the beans with. Selah got some of her stuffed animals and had them trick-or-treat for the little toys in the bin. They were happy to get new sensory bins and played in them for a long time.