Sensory camp is awesome! - Day Four

Today we explored our sense of touch. We started out as per usual with the activities tables and Ben made a bee line for the Manatee with wheels in the bug bucket. Which lead to me having an interesting discussion with another Mother. (I thought Manatees were commonly known, but apparently they are not, well just in case you don't know what I mean when I say "Manatee on wheels" it's like this only with wheels.)
The sun was shinning brightly so off we went to the teaching garden. One of the little girls decided that she was going to hold Ben's hand, and they skipped a long full of care free youthful exuberance.


Ben was unfortunately a little too exuberant and he fell and cut his hand, but I was able to take care of it. with some disinfectant, polysporin, a Wall-E Bandaid, and a kiss.
Then we sang some songs in the teaching garden that involved jumping,


and next the children used their sense of touch to explore objects hidden in a sack to see if they could guess what they were just from touching. We had snack with a story about a spider and his textured web.

At free play time Ben went straight for the watering cans again, and even though I don't like to structure or influence his free play, I felt obligated to tell him that there was a sand pit with shovels.
So he was happily digging away until we were called back to circle. Then he was sad that he didn't have an opportunity to water any plants so we quickly ran over to the watering wheel barrow and quickly water a plant.
After free play my suspicions that the the facilitators at sensory camp are tree huggers was confirmed! ;)
The children had to feel a tree with their eyes closed and try to remember the feel of that particular tree, and then find it again later. It was really sweet and a great activity.
Ben helped tidy up the tube and hoops and we all headed back to the center to do a craft.



On the way back the children demanded to play follow the leader, and the facilatator concented provided that the children stayed behind her, which they did very well.


Then we found out why it is important to stay behind the leader when a little park buggy came zooming down the hill.


Back at the center we made touch paintings with different textured materals and glue.


When we were leaving Ben was sad that tomorrow would be the last day of sensory camp and he was telling me that he hopes school will be just like sensory camp. Sadly he was very disappointed to learn that there will be no teaching garden at school......