Sensory play with chia seeds!
Date: June 27, 2022
Time: Sensory Play
Facilitators: Jasmine, Simran J and Sifat
Props used
Soaked Chia seeds, water, tempera paints, cornflour, spoons, bowls, glass and wooden containers.
What was the activity?
This activity is highly sensory in nature. It involves making a fun goo of chia seeds, cornflour, water and paints with which the children got a chance to submerge their hands into and have a sensory experience.
Why did we plan this activity?
This activity is cognitively a vibrant one and its benefits include,
Sensory Experience: The kids mixed the cornflour and paints with the chai seeds mixture with their hands and spoons. Also, they indulged in playing randomly with the mixture, experiencing different textures, like soft and thick consistency of the gel formed.
Fine motor skills: The toddlers played with the spoons and mini containers, filled them with the mixture and poured out the slime into the tray. They were also engrossed in mixing the chia seeds with the cornflour. All of this involved fine motor and gross motor muscles of the kids.
Language and speech development: Our arthlings recognised and learnt about names of different colors and directions in which their hands moved while playing. Also, there was verbalisation about different action verbs like “Pour the slime on into the tray”, “Mix the chia seeds with the cornflour”, etc.
Mindfulness: The toddlers seemed quite focused towards mixing and playing with the slime mixture. Such mindful activities help in improving mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing of the toddlers.
The Series of Steps engaged in?
For this sensory play, Chia seeds were already soaked the night before. During the sensory play time, chia seeds were poured out into the tray, water and cornflour was mixed in between to thicken the consistency a little and eventually tempera paints were added. The kids were invited to play with the slime and indulge in the sensory experience. Three trays were set up like this and the educators sat on the floor with them around the play area.
How did it go? (Finally!)
Vanya, Ayaansh and Advaith sat with Sifat, Aaradhya, Swastik, Janya sat with Simran J and Jasvi, Ratujit, Radhya, Atharv Gupta and Neyansh played with Jasmine. Neyansh and Taksh kept switching from one tray to another. The toddlers submerged their spoons and containers into the mixture. The educators kept adding cornflour in between to make the mixture a little thick and soft in consistency, so that the kids could put their hands into it and play with it. Single colors were added in each tray to make it look more attractive. The kids were engrossed in mixing the tempera with the chia seeds mixture. Radhya preferred opening the bottle lid and pouring out water into the chia seed mixture. Ratujit mixed the mixture with his hands and then placed his hands all over his face, giving himself an orange face by the end of the activity.
