Sensory Bag Possibilities…

I was on Pinterest one day and found these really cool sensory bags and thought that they might be an interesting idea to try for story time.  Before I decided to make 30 of them, I decided to try it out with my friend’s little girl who is about 2 1/2 years old.  A bunch of friends spent Saturday picnic-ing and grilling and then went camping in the evening.  I made a couple different versions of sensory bags for her to play with, and I ‘ll tell you – they were a big hit!

After researching “sensory bags” online, I found a number of different recipes and ideas!  One of the best sites I found was this one with 40 different types of sensory bags to make.  If you are unfamiliar with the concept, a sensory bag is a simple Ziploc bag (I used the freezer bags in hopes that they would be more sturdy) and some sort of substance to put in it that is fun to manipulate.  I zipped up the bags and reinforced the zipper with heavy duty packaging tape along the zipper and down the side just a little bit so that nothing could escape the bag.

I came up with three different versions.  In the first I used inexpensive hair gel and added google-y eyes of different sizes.  It worked perfectly, since Halloween is coming up and my little friend loved squishing the hair gel and counting the eye balls.  The second version I made was baby oil and dyed water (food coloring is the easiest).  The oil and water obviously separate and combine as you shake the bag up.  I threw in some glitter too to make it more exciting.  And finally, if you’re looking for a child-safe alternative, I found a recipe online using water, cornstarch and a little sugar.  You let it boil on the stove and it becomes a gel substance.  I added some food coloring and glitter to this as well.  I found this recipe to be very thick and I think I would water it down a little to allow kids to more easily manipulate the material.  This material is also opaque, so I tired adding little glass gems (that you would normally put in a vase), but it was really difficult to see them.  My little friend absolutely loved playing with them all, including taking off her shoes and stepping on the cornstarch bag, she loved mixing up the water/oil bag, and counting the eyeballs.  I made these using the gallon bags, just to see how they would work.  And for a group of story time kids, I think I would probably make them using the smaller quart size bags or even the sandwich bags.

I would definitely caution parents to make sure that children are well supervised while playing with these sensory bags, you don’t want them to leak and the child try and eat the material or anything.  We were playing with ours at a picnic table and even the rough wood table didn’t puncture the bag at all.  You could use these to practice letters or numbers, tracing, shapes, or add little knick-knacks in the bag for your child to play an “I Spy” game with.  What’s great about this project is that they are relatively inexpensive to make (I found all my supplies at the dollar store and grocerey store!) and quick too!  The possibilities are endless and the fun is too!