The idea is to provide a range of different items, but they are inside balloons. This means that a little one can feel their texture, squidge and squash them, but without their hands getting dirty. It also means that the items are 'hidden' and so older children might enjoy guessing what is inside the balloon.
I decided to do just 5 simple sensory balloons:
* rice
* shaving foam
* water beads
* pasta
* flour
The trickiest bit of this, as I'm sure you can imagine, was getting the things INTO the
balloons! The flour and rice were especially difficult, and I would suggest you actually blow the balloons up slightly and leave them for a while to stretch them out. This would allow you to fit more in, and would make them just slightly easier to fill.
Without a doubt, both for Isabelle and I the best sensory balloon was the one with water beads inside. This one is so squishy and squashy, and when you squeeze it hard, the water beads shine through the balloon and all the different colours can be seen.
Our least favorite was the pasta. We only had Penne pasta and I never before realised how sharp it can be when uncooked! It was poking out all over the balloon, and didn't allow much movement when it was felt.
I set these up the night before and when we came down this morning, Isabelle and I played with them straight away. She loved squashing the water beads, rice and shaving foam and would take one balloon at a time to play with it, before exchanging it for another. We talked about how the balloons felt (sharp, squidgy, mouldable) and also the colours of the balloons.
The best thing about this activity is it is something we can dip into and out of all day. After maybe 15 minutes Isabelle had had enough (and I fetched for her the water beads which hadn't fitted into the balloon to play with instead), but she went back to the sensory balloons a little bit later on.