Sensory Activities (+Thursday Journaling)

There has been some inquiry about some of the things in my list of activities in recent days. So, I thought I'd elaborate a bit here. To start, Aunt Audra is all about "sensory activities" from her days working at the day care. These are essentially, as you might guess, activities that use all the child's different senses. She gave examples like squishing oatmeal and splashing in water. Either by intent or accident we try to work them into our days.

First up - Water Play- This happens a lot at our house. This was primarily originated with my Mom. It works like this. Brendan happens to pass by a sink, shower, tub, water hose, sprinkler or other water related area and these days says "on" or twists his hand like you are turning it on. Then we strip him down and he plays in, around or with the water. For instance, today, he sat up in the kitchen sink with many many random cups, bowls, mugs, and other containers. He drank from them, poured the water back and forth, sprayed things with the sprayer (yes, this can get messy and we do try to reign it in a bit with the sprayer). This can go on for quite awhile. We also learn about turning the handle of the faucet to "cool" so he doesn't scald himself. We also have similar fun in the shower with more emphasis on "tapping" ones feet in the water. Oddly, he likes to be in the shower with it on (aka "raining") but doesn't really like to get wet in there. I haven't figured that out yet. He could do these activities over and over if we are willing to supervise.

Our second favorite sensory activity is "spice smelling" as mentioned yesterday. This literally involves B up on the counter in front of the spice cabinet. I, as most of you know, have many many herbs and spices including our "strategic spice reserve" in the freezer. For this activity though, B just pulls out any bottle, jar, bag or other container that looks interesting, we open it and he takes a whiff. Sometimes he gets a taste too. Some he definitely likes more than others. His favorite is the maple extract, but he seems to like the seasoned salt as well. It does vary and again is quite a long game. One has to be careful though as we are quite near the knife strip and there's a danger of falling off the counters so we are vigilant.

We do other sensory things like listening to his "tunes," singing little songs, and various color/visual activities including lots of trying to identify things as we go through the day. Really it is not always something I do consciously, but as with several things as I record for my project I discover it is a bit of a habit.

"This Week" Project
Thursday Journaling:

Our Meals:
Breakfast: Maple Brown Sugar LIFE, Milk, Dried Cranberries
Lunch: Red Beans & Rice, Apple, Water & B also had scrambled eggs with cheese
Snacks: Dried Cranberries , Apple, Vanilla Diet Pepsi (A&B) Bagel, Goldfish, Cereal, Milk - B,
Dinner: Spicy Beef & Barley Stew (Cooking Light), Bacon Cheddar Quick Bread with Dried [Apples] (Bon Appetit), Cranberry Apple Crumble (Cooking Light) & Blue Bell Natural Vanilla Ice Cream + Dr. Pepper & Water

Our Day:
6:30am- Brent is up and getting ready, heads out the door at 7:30 or so.... B and I sleep until 8:35. Lovely change from the 3am the day before
8:30am-10am Get up, breakfast, grocery list/meal planning, water play, Sesame Street while I work a bit, more water play in the bathroom, get ready to go to the store
10am-11 - Grocery shopping at Crest. B gets to ride in neat "car" cart and is relatively patient
11:00-11:40 - unpack groceries while B plays in the car, make lunch, eat and then off to naptime
11:40-12:30- Teleconferences while I chop up things for dinner, make incredible bread (see above and prior posting), get the crockpot started, ponder the FTC FACTA Red Flag issues, hearing occasional noises from B's room
12:30-1:30- more calls, e-mails and occaisional noises...hmmm very suspicious
1:30-3:45 - more work, teleconference, talk to Aunt Audra, think may actually make Board deadlines
3:45pm- 5pm- Start to wonder if B is Ok, hear muttering, check on him and am informed "bye bye" so leave him be while I straighten up a bit and answer an e-mail or two. Shortly, my presence is requested. We play in and around his bed, then with his animals for awhile. I take lots of pictures. He randomly starts playing with Brent's deodorant. Brent arrives home.
5-6pm - finish up dinner and clean-up for our guests, Boys play inside and out, B takes off all his clothes when Daddy changes his after work - very cute.
6-7:30pm - Dinner with Erik & Kelli, lots of laughing, everyone has to run around the yard with B, he loves having new people to play with and they have great stories to tell. Bath time and jammies before good-byes.
7:30-8 - Milk & Story time today: Barnyard Dance, Polar Bear,Polar Bear What do you Hear? (Both twice - once by Mama and once by Daddy) and One Red Dot flipped through several times. Then pick up the animals time and night night.
8-9:15 - Work for both of us
9:15-10:30 - blogging, reading blogs, a bit of news, a few more e-mails and goodnight.