With Halloween right around the corner, what better way to get in the spooky spirit than with some fun sensory play! Providing your little one sensory experiences doesn’t need to be limited to just to their therapy sessions in the clinic. There are so many opportunities to obtain these experiences with things that may just be hanging around the house! We’d love for you to try some of these fun activities out at home! If you share them on social media and tag @chatterboxpeds so we can see all your festive creations!

Pumpkin Pulp Play

Pumpkin carving is a traditional Halloween activity. A time spent with families carving pumpkins into fun jack-o-laterns and watching them glow. During this activity with your family, use this an opportunity for tactile exploration! Allow your little one to dig around in the pumpkin pulp with their hands or feet! Encourage this opportunity by preparing them ahead of time; asking them what they think it will feel like. While they’re interacting with the pulp continue to encourage the conversation and asking them what it feels like or offering ideas such as “is it cold?” “Is it wet?” “is it slimey?”

**This messy play task provides a lot of tactile input! Be sure to keep some wipes or towels near by to allow your little one to wash their hands if the experience becomes too much!

BONUS TIP: Add a little fine motor play into the mix by having your little one use their fingers to remove the seeds from the pulp!

Worms and Eyeballs 

Try making a spooky sensory bin with things you may have in your own kitchen!

What you will need:

• Spaghetti noodles (the worms)
• Grapes (the eyeballs)

How to:

• Cook the spaghetti and let it cool
• Combine the spaghetti with grapes to a large container

Allow your little one to explore with their hands in the “worms” and search for the “eye balls”. Encourage them to use their fingers to remove all the eye balls and place into another bowel/cup! Use the time before/during this exploration to describe what they think the experience will feel like or how it feels on their little hands!

**This messy play task provides a lot of tactile input! Be sure to keep some wipes or towels near by to allow your little one to wash their hands if the experience becomes too much!

BONUS TIP: Encourage their language development by counting each eyeball them remove!

Eyeball Sensory Bag

If exploring with wet/slimy textures is a little too much for your little one, this eyeball sensory bag may be just what you need! Utilizing a large plastic bag, hair gel, and plastic craft eye balls is the perfect spooky combo to offer exploration in a less intimating way. Combine hair gel and plastic craft googley eyes. Sometimes you can find colored hair gel, but if not, you can add a few drops of food coloring to give your sensory bag some color. For additional reinforcement on the bag, add some packing tap along the seal at the top to be sure we keep all the gooey goodness inside!

Ways to use the eyeball sensory bag:

• Squeeze the bag
• Practice finger isolation to move the eyeballs around the bag, move them all to one corner or one side of the bag
• Try switching up where the play is happening; play on the floor on your belly to address posture and core strength or try to tape onto a window (as seen in the picture) to work on arm/shoulder strength)

Activity idea obtained from Hands On As We Grow https://handsonaswegrow.com/toddler-sensory-activity-slimy-eyes/

Shaving Cream Spiderwebs and Ghosts 

For this Halloween themed activity all you need is shaving cream and a flat surface! To set this activity up all you need to do is spray some shaving cream on any flat surface (think: a table, a cookie sheet, a cutting board, etc.) Then encourage your little one to use their hands to move the shaving cream around to make fun and spooky shapes! Another alternative is to use the shaving cream to make the spiderweb then encourage your little one to isolate one finger to trace along the web! This will provide both that tactile exploration while also addressing finger isolation to use one finger to make these shapes! 

**This messy play task provides a lot of tactile input! Be sure to keep some wipes or towels near by to allow your little one to wash their hands if the experience becomes too much!