Sensory play for toddlers – a stemful mind

Introducing math skills at an early age should definitely be done through fun activities. Connecting math to positive feelings is great for confidence and self-esteem. Bath time at our house is a happy moment. The warm water, the bubbles, the warm bathroom. It is a moment that gives us all peace. As the kids splash around and play in the warmth I get a moment to pause for the day. In this moment of comfort it is possible to sneak in some math for toddlers through play with an easy low-prep activity that requires materials you probably already have at home. It has so much learning potential; color mixing, math and even literacy skills can be practiced. So read on to find out how you can create some bath paint and use the wall as a learning canvas to get their little minds working.

Easy Sensory Bath Time Activity

Important! If you are doing this with young kids that still put things in their mouth be very careful and pay attention so that they don’t eat it. I personally would do this activity once they are over with the sticking-everything-in-their-mouth phase

Materials

Baking pan for cupcakes/Ice cube tray
Shaving cream
Food Coloring
Optional paint brush (playing with your hands is always more fun for kids!)

Preparation

You can prepare the tray with the colors and the shaving cream beforehand and have it as a surprise (we did this the first time with our kid and she was really excited) or you can prepare it together. Preparing it together gives you the chance to talk about color mixing! Either way, here are the steps for the preparation:

Squeeze some drops of food coloring into each shape. Mix different primary colors to create a whole variety of colors. Remember you are mixing with white so you will be getting different color tones too! Explore and see what color palette appears on your tray
Next add some shaving cream to each shape.
Mix it with your child and watch the colors appear “magically”

Usually the blue color is overwhelmingly strong when mixing with the other colors so use less than you think, you can always add more later.

Math For Toddlers

Now it’s time to sneak in some math for your young toddlers! But first of all, let your child explore by themselves with this new bath time paint. When I tried the activity for the first time my daughter loved the different colors but didn’t know what to do with them. Painting at bath time? A bit out of context… Having a bath had always been about getting clean not painting. So I showed her how she could use it on her body as well as on the wall. Then I let her take over and she was happily playing by herself for a long time.

At one point I asked her if I could paint too. We created a big happy mess on the wall and all the colors ended up mixed together, creating a brownish-grey mush. At that moment I realized that the wall had become a learning canvas. We could draw numbers and letters, erasing and repeating all the time. Great for motor skills and perfect for sneaking in some STEM through play!

How To Create An Educational Experience

There is so much you can do with that lovely learning canvas depending on your child’s age! However, if you are looking for math ideas for toddlers here are some suggestions to inspire you:

Draw a number on the wall and have them trace it with their finger
Explore shapes: prepare a shape matching game by drawing pairs of shapes that they have to match
Counting practice. Draw a number of circles and ask your kid to count them or ask them to make a number of lines. Connect this with the number by using an extra blank canvas. Draw a number of circles and then the number on the other one. Ask them to count and then trace the number.
Patterns: create simple patterns with dots and lines and say them out loud together

In terms of math skills, there is not much more to explore at this age, so just focus on developing their vocabulary by talking about shapes, numbers and counting.

If you are reading this and thinking of doing it with older kids here are some more ideas:

Ask your kids to draw their own numbers. This can be done by asking different questions that have a number as an answer such as how many pets do you have? or how many times do you brush your teeth?
Bring in some equations and ask them to solve them! They can use an extra blank canvas if they need some assistance in figuring it out. For example, on one canvas you can write the equation 4-2= and on the other one draw 4 circles and they can erase 2 to find the solution. With adding, they just draw extra circles and count how many they get in total.

Connecting Math To A Quality Moment

By doing this with your child you are connecting math to a quality moment within their comfort zone. There is no better way for a child’s mind to learn than when they feel safe, happy and motivated. Use this moment to have fun, explore together and to boost confidence in their math abilities.

Once the fun is over, I do recommend that you quickly rinse your child off so they don’t smell like a freshly shaved man. It comes off easily from the body and wall. Also, this activity does not need to be just at bath time, it’s just easier to clean up. You can also just use some trays as your learning canvases and do this math for toddlers activity outside. I hope you can get into it in whatever way you choose and can share the excitement your child will show. They will be thankful you made the extra effort that day.

More Fun Activities and Games:

math stem skills shaving cream messy play bath time paint

Before you start reading I would like to clarify something about this post. The idea behind this sensory stem experiment was to see if we could make different jello color combinations to explore colors with a sensory side to it. The blending colors part was a bit of a “fail” but it was so much fun and it opened up the chance to talk about colors while experimenting with our sense of touch. And because STEM is all about making mistakes and learning from them I wanted to share this with you anyway. Even though the colors won’t mix properly, you still see certain hints of new colors and it is a great way to engage your child in some messy sensory play. A heads up, it can get really messy so I would suggest to do it outside and have some old towels to wipe your kid’s hands.

But for now, I will share the experiment with you and the activity as it was still a very fun way to talk about colors! And with a failed experiment you also learn something, so it’s a great way to teach this to your kids too. So I will describe the preparation and then suggest a few ways you can guide the experiment to create some learning from it.

Preparation

My daughter helped me prepare the jello beforehand so she was very excited to do the experiment later. This type of motivation is great for any experiment! At this point, you can introduce the experiment and make some hypotheses of whether or not mixing the jello will mix the colors. Write your hypothesis down for later, or any other thoughts you might come up with. Time to prepare our experiment!

Things you will need for the preparation:

Clear jello mix
Food coloring (we just used the primary colors: red, yellow and blue)
Small containers to separate colored jello

Prepare the jello following the instructions on the package, before putting into the fridge, separate into small containers and add food coloring, mix with a spoon until it’s dissolved and has a strong color. Once the jello has cooled down, it is time to start the experiment!

Fun Color Experiment

So let’s go ahead and take a look at what the experiment could look like. The idea was the following; to mix jello with food coloring and once it gets cold try to mix different color jello to make new colors. I know now that once jello gets cold you can’t really mix it together and therefore you can’t blend colors (I’m sure there is some science behind that and I will look into it to update the post in the future). Things you will need for the sensory STEM experiment:

Colored jello
Big bowls where the mixing magic will (or will not) happen (we used 2)
Old towels or cloth that you don’t mind getting dirty to wipe off the jello

Now it’s time to have some messy playful fun! Bring out the colored jello and try mixing different colors (with your hands!) in the bigger bowls and see what happens. It is so good for children to feel different textures and playing with jello is quite interesting! It is very beneficial to use your senses when learning and while they have their hands in the jello you can have some good talks about colors!

Observation and conversation guide for the experiment

The main thing to do with toddlers is talk, talk, talk. Have conversations about what is happening, make observations. This will help build vocabulary. The term “hypothesis” might be a bit over their heads but you can start to use the concept. Ask them if they think colors will mix and write a big YES or NO. Color-code it for better understanding, YES-Green or NO-Red. Put your prediction on the fridge and go explore other things until it is ready. Just like real experiments that usually require time, jello takes time to cool down.

Next up, when it’s time for the experiment, grab your “hypothesis” and all the jello containers. Put it all out and let the mess begin! I suggest saving some containers for later and just letting your kids play first. If possible, you can try answering following questions:

What happens to the colors when we mix the jello? Is your paper right or wrong?
Does it mix better or worse with different combinations of colors? (try all three combinations and see if there are any differences)
What actually happens?
Why do you think it happens?

Feel free to get messy too and observe while your toddler plays. Point things out and start some color conversations. Here are some suggestions of observations you can make and what you can talk about:

Look at what happened when I mixed these colors!
If your kid is receptive, you can explain the colors you have and introduce the concept of primary colors
Ask your kid to pass you some colors. Can I have the blue and yellow? What do you think blue and yellow make?
Explain color combinations and what new colors they create (you will see a faint hint of new colors when mixing the jello)

And that’s it! A simple color experiment that will keep your children entertained and will allow them to “feel” colors! I hope you can enjoy this experiment with them and if anyone knows what the scientific concept behind the jello color not mixing please let me know in the comments!

Want to know how to transform your STEM activities at home? Check out this post: