31 Days Of Sensory Play {Day Fifteen} Invitation to play

Welcome to Day Fifteen of 31 days of Sensory Play.

Do you have a favourite pair of boots or shoes? Your go to shoe or boot. You probably like me or your neighbour have quite a few choices of footwear but you gravitate to these special ones because they are familiar. You love ’em. Kids get the same way with their toys and activities.

They’ll go to the same ones. Unless we show them new things and new ideas.

Anna of Imagination Tree shares daily prompts and invitations to play and Rachelle of Tinkerlab shares daily art prompts. Both are handy reminders of using what we have differently.

The concept of setting up something and our curious children following is easily done at home. It’s what you see at nursery schools. For many parents it’s the distraction we need for our children to leave because an activity tempts them away.

The key to a successful invitation is it’s creative and it offers two or more items. There’s no other big disctractions around so you can see it. The items don’t necessarily go together like salt and pepper but we know them well.

Remember the soapy playdough? It’s our first time making an uncooked recipe playdough. I have no idea how long it lasts so we want to get our play with it. The feel of this playdough is silky, soft and smooth. A very different feel than the usual cooked playdough and probably other uncooked playdough. It wasn’t hard to experiment with it because he was so curious about the feeling and loved smelling it.

Today I left it on the table along with some cotton earbuds. His invitation to play.

Creativity needs to be encouraged and nurtured and at first he ignored the ear buds and worked with the playdough. Enjoying the feel and squeezing, hitting and stretching it. Accidentally he rolled onto the earbud and after some encouragement started using them.

Things didn’t work out how he expected but he kept at it and tried new and different things. No aim in mind. No final finished product but lots of skills sharpened and creativity exercised this time.

What would happen if you combined 2+ items together in a clear space? This is our fun for today. Make your very own invitation to play…….

Want some ideas?

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