Welcome to week 10 of ‘Toddler Tuesdays’. You can find more of our ‘Toddler Tuesdays’ activities here, we hope you are enjoying them. This week’s activity is sensory play with your very own goo!

You will need -

A large plastic container or ice-cream container
2 cups cornflour
1 cup of water
A painting apron or old clothes
Optional - 2 drops of food colouring
Optional - towel or plastic sheet to cover your floor or table

Instructions -

You may like to do this activity in an empty bathtub to contain the mess, or use a towel or plastic sheet to cover your table or floor. Have all items ready but don’t mix your goo together just yet. Depending on the age and ability of your child they may be able to do all of the mixing themselves or you might need to do this for them. Place the cornflour into the large contained and add your food colouring if you are using it. Next add the water to the container and start mixing using your hands. This may take some time. Encourage your child to play the mixture as they are mixing and to describe what they are feeling if they have the language for that. If they don’t you might like to commentate for them. Once it’s all mixed together let them have some free play. You will find that when you move the goo quickly and compress it, it will hold together and once you stop pushing it will become runny again. This is an open ended task governed only by imagination.

Focus -

This activity encourages the strengthening of fine motor skills and co-ordination using sensory play to manipulate the goo. Touch is the focus of this sensory play. Many prems have sensory issues so it’s important to work within your child’s limits with this activity. Some may like to stir with a spoon but not like to get their hands grubby. Some may be ok to touch it but only using gloves. Work with what you already know about your child to make this activity fun for them. You may need to model getting grubby so they are comfortable with that. As this activity is open ended it is an excellent base for imaginative play and language development. Encourage the use of descriptive words whilst playing.

If you try out one of our activities please let us know what your toddler (and you) thought. Feel free to leave a comment here or post an image or comment to our Facebook page. If you enjoy the activity we would encourage you to share this post with your friends.