We got a bit carried away with the pink at our group with Homestart Dundee this week. This sensory tray had lots of different textures to explore and it was nice to watch how the different ages of wee ones used it. Babies were just feeling the pink snow and the feathers while the toddlers were moulding cup cakes and scooping ice creams.
These trays were made using a dyed pink version of sensory cornflour snow. You need:
- Corn flour- several boxes for a tray this big but you can use a baking tray for a more manageable size
- Oil – we used sunflower oil
- Red or pink food colouring
Tip your cornflour into a tray and add half a cup of water with your food colouring mixed through (this will help it to mix through the flour). Then start gradually adding your oil and mixing thoroughly as you go. This takes quite a lot of mixing, rubbing any lumps between your fingers until it’s a nice soft snow like texture. You should be able to mould it into a hard packed ball but then crumble it back up into soft fluff again.
We then set up the tray to have lots of interesting bits and bobs. We gathered pom poms, cotton balls, feathers, cup cake cases, cookie cutters, toy ice cream cones, toy candles, red balls, spoons, pinchers, scoops, cups and bowls.
It is nice to leave little ones to lead the exploration because you never know what ideas they will come up with. And you can support them by playing along with any role play, “eating their ice creams” etc.
Here is our tray after the play was over!
