While I was brainstorming leaf themed activities to share with you this week, I remembered a sensory activity on Fun at Home with Kids. This falling leaves sensory activity is loosely based on it. One big difference is that I did the lacing with yarn.
Putting This Sensory Activity Together
- Supplies
- Scissors
- Brown Yarn
- Rectangular Laundry Basket
Leaves Made from the Following: construction paper, melt, origami paper
Constructing the Sensory Activity
Adding the Trunk and Some Branches
There really isn’t a right or wrong way to create the tree in the laundry basket. You just decided which side would be the trunk. Then you can string a long piece of yarn from one end of the basket to the other. Sometimes the yarn can be wrapped around a top rung of the basket and other times it can go down to a low rung. Other times you can string the yarn across to a side of the basket on the other end to create side branches.
You will keep wrapping until you run out of yarn. You can start a new long piece of yarn after tying off the first one or stop.
Adding More Branches
You will find it easier to add small branches by creating them with short pieces of string. You may decide to tie the beginning of the yarn to end of the string after creating a branch.
Creating the Trunk
You will take a long piece of yarn and weave it up and down across the strings making up the trunk. You will want to tie the end of the yarn to the first string before you start. When you have finished, you will tie the end of the yarn to the last string in the trunk.
If you want a narrow trunk, you can pull the string tightly was you weave.
Ideas for a Sensory Activity
Here are some different sensory activity ideas you can do with your tree basket:
- Drop the leaves through the tree one by one.
- Place leaves at the bottom of the tree. Then shake the basket. Children can watch the leaves falling down after the hit the tree.
- Children can create a design with the leaves on top of the yarn tree. If the leaves fall through, they can reach through and pick them up. Balancing the leaves can be tricky, but is worth the challenge.
This is part of an early learning activities series inspired by I Can Teach My Child called Toddler Time. Although my son is no longer a toddler, I will be joining I Can Teach My Child to share activities you can do with your young children this month. I will include ways of using activities with older children in most of my posts.
