To celebrate St Patrick’s Day we made an Irish themed sensory tray. We created the Irish flag out of red split lentils, white rice, and Lentilles Vertes. We then added some chocolate, gold coins, and some scoopers. This tray is super easy to set up as you don’t need to dye any rice beforehand - you can just set up and go!⠀
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Elijah loved making marks in the rice and lentils and picking everything out and moving it around. I covered the gold coins in the rice and lentils and let Elijah dig around for them. He enjoyed feeling the new textures and hearing the noise the lentils made when they were sprinkled into the tray. He played with the tray for ages and was so so quiet, it’s amazing to see all of his concentration and how intrigued and curious he was. I’d just love to know what he’s thinking and what’s going on in his mind.⠀
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This tray is great for:⠀
🌈 Inciting the senses⠀
🌈 Improving fine motor skills ⠀
🌈 Sparking an interest in learning⠀
🌈 Building creativity and imaginative play⠀
🌈 FUN⠀
As well as our sensory tray we decided to create a St Patrick’s Day rainbow made from a multicoloured ink pad and our finger prints! The beautiful rainbow led to Elijah’s pot of gold.
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This is such a fun and simple activity to do with your little ones. You could even get each family member to do a specific rainbow colour, so you really have a work of art made by the whole family. Elijah was more fascinated with the colour his finger changed too more than anything so he did just a handful of finger prints.
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For older children you could ask them:⠀
What is your favourite colour of the rainbow? Can you name all of the colours in the rainbow?⠀
If you found a pot of gold what would you do with your treasure? Would you save it, spend it, give it away? ⠀