Oh, my, goodness have the boys LOVED this sensory tub.
It all starts on a peaceful little farm along the Seine where the Franks are fishing and tending their fields where oats, peas, beans and barley grow. (I assume that song is historically accurate.)
But in the distance they hear the splash, splash, splash of oars. It's the Vikings come to pillage the town!!
As you can imagine, chaos ensues...especially when you have three little boys at the helm. Eventually the Vikings take over the area of Normandy and many become farmers. Some however still have wanderlust in their blood; Eric the Red tries to persuade them to come to his new settlement on the lush, island paradise of Greenland. "Come on over, Guys, the weather is fine!!"
Oh, bother.
What a mess!!
I mean, what a wealth of opportunities for the kids to practice their sweeping skills!!
It's a long sensory tub this time; it stretches all the way down the hall.
In the tub we have outer space (black beans) on one side and rocky planetary surface (aquarium gravel) on the other. I added a Space Toob and Solar System and some bristle blocks to make space stations.
Then I stretched a solar system model along the hall. The sizes of the planets (and sun which is the big, red outline) are to scale with each other, and the distances between the planets along the "space line" are to scale with each other, but the sizes and distances are in vastly different scales.
Where did August go? Here is what we have been up to...
Spencer got his first turn in the bounce house:
We took the remains of the moon sand outside and added water until it was an icky, squishy mess just begging to be scooped and slopped around:
My great aunt Barbara came to visit on her 87th birthday:
And then today the boys and I went to the zoo in the rain:
We've started "officially" homeschooling, which isn't really official at all since Peter is only in kindergarten which is not compulsory. The big boys and I have been having a lot of fun learning and playing during school time. Next week we are going camping again and then shortly thereafter we are looking forward to my aunt Victoria coming for a visit and the boys' YMCA sports classes starting.
Lots of fun on the horizon.
This isn't the flour and oil kind of moon sand, because Elliot can't play with that due to his allergy. This moon sand is made of sand and cornstarch.
On the walls I taped some contact paper sticky side out. In one tub I put some straws.
In the other tub I put some scissors and some yarn with pipe cleaner "needles".
I prepared a big batch of white bath paint and then added it to muffin cups that already had a few drops of food coloring in them.
When the boys stirred the cups twelve different colors of paint appeared.
They spent a long time painting the tub, the toys, themselves and me.
By the end everyone and everything was clean and we just had to rinse all the supplies so they are ready for another day.
One side is a tree decorating station.
The other side is a snowscape with peppermint-scented, coarse kosher salt as the snow. The red and green noodles can be strung onto the pipe cleaners to make bracelets.
