Color Sensory Sink

Yay for a good kids day!
After two weeks -at least- of me being to sick to want to plan anything, today we finally had our Wednesday kids day!
I am excited about it.

I originally planned on painting the castle in the playroom and making play dough.  We have been working with colors this last week so I thought making the primary colors of play dough fit.

After my Bible time and morning prayers with Athena I was reading some of my favorite blogs and stumbled upon sensory sinks.  I thought the idea was really neat and started brainstorming ideas of what I had around the house and a theme.  I wanted to recreate the St. Patrick's Day sink, it looked so adorable, but don't really have anything I could use for it.

As I brainstormed I made myself some oatmeal (a nice healthy beginning to my day) with cranberries.  CRANBERRIES! I have had this huge bag in the freezer for, like, ever and thought these would be great for a sensory sink item.  So I was thinking of using Red as the theme.  I was thinking and thinking.....and thought of the red apples that were in the discover pack.  DISCOVERY PACK! Inside it are items that would not get ruined in water and are all about colors, my new found theme!

Color Sensory Sink

I placed two chairs in front of the sink and supplied enough supplies for each of my precious little dragons.  Each had their own bowl of cranberries and ice cubes. 

These two kids were so antsy to start they couldn't stand still. 

 Spencer is clenching up because he is excited in the picture on the right. 






I left them to play.  A new adventure on it's own for me. 
I went into the other room because I knew if I hovered it could refrain some of their natural play.  I tend to say "no don't do that" or "do it like this" so I removed myself from the situation.  I called my sister and she laughed at me and said "what is the worst that will happen? You will have to use a towel to wipe up water.  No big deal, let them play."  She was right.

The kids called me into the kitchen after about 30 minutes and asked me to play with them.  I walked in and both counters had pools of water on them and the kids were soaked.  I had prepared for this mentally (and put on some shoes) so when I walked in I didn't get anxious and mad at the mess.

 Smashing Cranberries

 When I walked in Athena said she was doing and experiment. 

Spencer was stirring his ice watching it melt. 

I helped him smoosh some cranberries to. 

The smashing was one of their favorite parts.  When the cranberry finally gave it would fizz, seriously audibly fizz, with bubbles.  Then the juice would drip out and make cool designs in the water.  

You can't really tell but in the picture of Spencer's hands the red juice is flowing over his fist.  It looked much more red in person. 

They smooshed and smooshed until all of them were popped.  I helped too, it was pretty cool to hear and feel the 'pop' between my fingers. 

The foam shapes also allowed for brain exercise.  Here in these pictures you can see Athena enjoyed filling the cups, Spencer the bowls.  

When Jerry got home I showed the kids the pictures to refresh their memory of what we did so they could tell him.  This helped them relive the moment and both begged to do it again.  I think sensory sinks may be something we continue to do, if I can come up with themes and objects.

Oh yes and my wonderful boyfriend brought me home beautiful flowers!