Stab That Shape! Sensory Activities with Foam Trays
How to entertain a preschooler and toddler with nothin’ but trash…
If you’ve got a preschooler, I recommend you never throw away a foam tray before using it to its full sensory activity potential! We have enjoyed breaking and stabbing foam plates before, such as when we made our Foam Plate Sensory Letters.
Recently we were making egg shapes from our foam plates so that we could decorate our Easter tree with Homemade Shrinky Dink Eggs, and it turned into a sensory play time before we even got started with making the egg ornaments.
I traced shapes on to the bottom of the tray using a toothpick then handed the tray over to my four year old. He used a butter knife to punch out along the lines. The foam gave a satisfying bit of resistance, and he felt very good about being able to do such a helpful part of our craft project.
For the toddler I handed her pieces of the foam to break. After that wore thin, I handed her some plastic forks to stab into the foam (These happen to be our very fun construction themed forks
After a while I handed her a cup so that she could continue breaking foam pieces and then put them into the cup.
Over all a very engaging bit of sensory play that both kids liked, and that helped them practice their fine motor skills as well.
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i run an aftercare at school and i brought out your ideas with the polystirene trays wow wat a hit. the kids loved to stab the foam and make their own creations on them. I gave it to the toddlers and they poked away then started to break the trays to little pieces. it kept them busy.
thank you for your simple but enjoyable ideas.
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Great idea for recycling materials for play! Thank you, again, for sharing via FB today!
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thank you for that 🙂 you just gave me an idea on who to teach my girl how to cut her own food.
Poking holes = a good thing? What a great idea!
I’d love if you link this (and any other relevant post) to my Teaching Time for Toddlers link party–which is open all week!
https://philwife.blogspot.com/2012/05/teaching-time-for-toddlers-montessori.html
My son loves to do the same thing with foam trays and foam egg cartons. Stabbing with a fork is tons of fun as is shredding the foam to bits.
Yes, my kids also would love to “stab” things. Love the use of those trays. We go through lots. I pinned this great idea. Vicky from http://www.messforless.net
Ha ha! I love the title of the post 🙂 My kids would love anything that had to do with poking holes in something…what a great way to get them to learn!
So much fun with such simple items!
Thanks for sharing with Learning Laboratory =)