3 Easy Edible Sensory Activities for Toddlers

Yesterday, my husband worked 14 hours. 

That means 14 hours with a toddler, all by myself. That would have totally been fine if I didn't have a business to run, work to do, and a house to clean all at once.

BUT.. Instead of waking up and already wishing my husband were home to help, I decided to wake up with a positive attitude. I decided that my son and I were going to go on a date!

We began our adventure by going to our water park and playground where Grey got to play and run around. Afterwards, we went and got frozen yogurt as a treat and shared a bowl. He loved it!

Then, we went to the grocery store and shopped for a few ingredients to make some fun activities that I saw on Pinterest for 18 month old toddlers!

Here's what we made:

Edible Playdough

• 1/2 cup Marshmallow Creme
• 1/3 cup Cornstarch 
• 2 tbsp. colored icing
• 1 1/2 tbsps. oil

The first step to making this homemade "playdough" was to mix the ingredients, by hand, in a bowl. You will have to knead this into a dough as you would if you were making pie crust. Use the oil as needed to help form the mixture into a ball. If your batter is too sticky, add more cornstarch. If it breaks apart easily, add more creme and a little bit of oil. 

The end result was almost like the marshmellow fondant that you see on some cakes!

My son loved it! He squeezed it, poked it, and even ate it. Usually, I would havea heart attack feeding my kid marshmellow creme, but sometimes you just have to pick your battles. Yesterday was one of those days. Breaking the rules was sort of fun :)

YUMMY! We stored the rest in an air tight container for the next day.

Spaghetti Sensory

• Spaghetti
• oil
• food coloring

Our next creation was quite simple! All I did was boil the spaghetti, drain, and returned to a bowl where I added blue food coloring and a little bit of oil to keep it from sticking.

He had a blast "hiding" behind the noodles and playing with them.

Yummy!

Moon Sand

• 6 cups of flour (any kind)
• 1 cup of cooking oil

This was a SUPER basic moon sand recipe. Some recipe calls for coloring and glitter, etc, but we wanted to go the old fashioned route and make it look like real sand since my son just LOVES to eat the sand here on our beaches (YIKES).

Though it is edible, it does not have the best taste since its just flour and oil. Some recipes call for brown sugar, but I already had my son hyped up on sugar from the play dough (good job, me).

The sand was easily manipulated and molded! You could build things out of it and shape things. The texture was so soft, too.

Someone instantly loved his mini "sandbox."

This is a great sensory activity for toddlers, though it may get a little messy. Play outdoors or on a hard floor surface.

As you can see, we ended up having a GREAT day. I wish everyday could have been like this. The activities kept him busy for an hour or so and I personally enjoyed creating them, myself.