Sensory Play and a Potty Chair

(Note: I wrote this blog post two days ago, so when you see the word today, just know that I mean "two days ago." :) )

Savannah and I had some fun with sensory play this morning. While we were waiting for it to warm up a bit outside so that we could go out and play (which is her favorite way to spend the mornings!) I quickly threw together a sensory tub for her to enjoy. I have been thinking lately about various educational/sensory/fine motor types of activities that we can rotate through in the mornings, sort of as a very, very casual start to some sort of a homeschooling schedule.

Using what I had on hand, I threw a bunch of dry oats (I had recently bought two enormous bags of Quaker oats at Costco!) into a blue tub and then scattered in some magnetic letters and numbers, a few star-shaped cookie cutters, a few scoops, and a small plastic ladle. The ladle was her favorite! At first she was very cautious and was mostly using the ladle to gently explore. When the oats would spill on the floor she would say, "Uh-oh!" and try to put them back in. I tried to encourage her to get her hands in there and not worry about the mess, and eventually she loosened up. When she would dig up a letter we would talk about the sound it makes (I used a song I had once heard somewhere: A says ah, A says ah, every letter makes a sound, A says ah. Obviously you change this for each letter.) When she would dig up a number we would count to that number. She seemed to be enjoying herself and we played for the better part of 40 minutes or so. Our time came to a close when she started grabbing fistfuls of oats and purposely flinging them out of the tub. I gave her a few warnings but when she continued being defiant we put the tub away. The clean up was relatively easy as I just swept it up (I would NOT do this on anything other than wood or tile flooring!)
 (She asked to play with the sensory bucket again that afternoon, and each day since then at least once if not twice. She always plays for a good 30 minutes!)

On another note, we bought a little potty chair for Savannah this past weekend. She's too young to really get into potty training, but she seems to be showing an interest in the potty lately and is sometimes aware of when she is going in her diaper. The big thing that made me want to get a chair is that she will sometimes wake up from a nap, and even once or twice from overnight, and be dry. I know this is a big sign of potty training readiness, so I figured if we have a potty chair and she wakes up dry she can just sit on it for awhile and see what happens.

So far the potty chair has not been used properly yet, but she does LOVE to sit on it. I have to keep the door to her bathroom closed or else she would just want to sit on it all day long! She's so funny. I think she just loves it because it is a little chair just her size and it makes her feel so grown up to pretend to go potty. Maybe one of these days she'll actually put it to use!