This summer the children in summer camp have been showing interest in both dramatic and sensory play experiences. We decided to blend their two interests together to create multiple sensory exploration play experiences. First, we brought water play indoors by filling a sensory bin with blue-dyed water and small sea creatures. The children loved pretending to be fishermen, mermaids, and even sea creatures themselves. During this play experience we discussed as a whole group why it is important to keep the ocean clean. Gabriel shared that "If the ocean is dirty, animals won’t be able to swim properly or find food to eat.".
The second sensory bin introduced to the children was full of Orbies. The children loved watching the water turn the hard beads into soft, squishy Orbies(water beads). The children then added small plastic bugs to the bin and used small nets to be bug catchers. They loved using their hands to hide the bugs and have their friends then search to find them.
The third sensory bin added to our program was a dinosaur exploration bin. The children used the large play dinosaurs, water, and various natural materials to create a habitat for the many different types of dinosaurs. As the children engaged with this sensory activity we discussed the names of all the dinosaurs, eating habits and how extinction came to be. The children took guesses as to how long-ago dinosaurs went extinct, most guesses were 30-40 years ago. We had a group discussion about how dinosaurs actually went extinct 65 million years ago, the children were shocked to think about how long-ago that was.
In summer camp, we continue to pursue the interests of the children and build on the many sensory exploration experiences we've done thus far.
