Usually it’s the ridiculously simple activities that kids like best and this one is no exception. This has been a favourite at our house for over ten years. I know exactly when we started doing it because I remember being over at my friend Julie’s and seeing her son playing it. I was the mom of three boys at the time so I knew instantly that it would be a hit at my house. I was right.
The premise is this: boys like cars; boys like mud; kids like play dough. It’s about that simple.
For this activity, you need brown playdough and some cars or trucks. I use chocolate playdough most of the time because I like the scent and consistency.
Once you suggest that they pretend the playdough is mud, kids, (boys especially) love to make roads in it, hills and valleys, and of course, get vehicles stuck. Then they can send their tow trucks to rescue the stuck vehicles or extract them via helicopter or whatever their imagination comes up with.
We always call this Stuck in the Mud. If I say to my kids, “do you want to play stuck in the mud?”, they know exactly what I’m talking about and seem to enjoy it as much now as they did when they were toddlers. It’s also a great simple sensory idea.
I wanted to share this simple activity with you but needed to get a few pictures in order to do so. I tried making my usual chocolate playdough recipe, but I was distracted and missed half a cup of flour plus IÂ substituted hot chocolate mix for the cocoa. The result was that it was lumpy, strange in colour, sticky, and burnt. The pot took forever to scrub because of the playdough burnt to the bottom of it and I was feeling pretty darn frustrated!
I didn’t have enough cream of tartar or arm muscles to try another batch, so I did what any mom would do and looked up a recipe for no-cook chocolate play dough. I didn’t like the consistency or look of it as much as I like my usual recipe, but it was way easier to make and the kids didn’t seem to mind.
I asked if they wanted to play Stuck in the Mud and Einstein ran off to get some cars! This type of sensory play never seems to get old!
If you are looking for other playdough ideas, you may want to follow my Playing with Playdough board on Pinterest. What is your favourite way to play with play dough?
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The kids had so much fun with this and they had no idea that they were actually doing really important sensory work! Setting this activity up could not be any simpler. All that is needed is a bucket full of water and some sponges. I bought two packs of six sponges each at the dollar store. For twelve sponges, I spent $2 and I am planning to turn them into two other sensory activities after this, so it was a very cost effective idea. If you already have sponges around the house, this can be a free activity.
This easy activity can easily be turned into another sensory game using the same bucket of water and sponges. If the water fight disseminates into chaos or if the kids get bored, they can go over and wash your car or the side of the house. You can add soapy bubbles to the water for this if you want (don’t add the bubbles to the water fight portion of the activity lest someone get it in their eyes) and you’ve now created another simple summer sensory activity and possibly, created enough time for yourself to run and throw a load of laundry in the wash or read a few pages in a book!
As the parent of seven kids, five with sensory issues, our 
In celebration of our newly functional trampoline, I thought I would share some of the games our kids play. Some are classic trampoline games and some they invented themselves.
2. Another favourite 
5. Have the kids do tricks like multiple bum drops or flips or jumping as high as they can and try to imitate or beat the one who went before them. Again, trampolines can be dangerous. We are fortunate in that we have not had any major injuries, but please do use caution.
These are very simple to make and allow kids to explore textures and even get used to textures that they made not be as comfortable with. I used paint chips (since I seem to be 
I have to be 100% honest and say that it was painful for me to watch some of this process. It was painful to watch certain things get mixed together when I knew there would be no hope of separating them again and it was painful sometimes not to offer instruction or give suggestions. I was sometimes cringing when I saw what they were adding, so this was as much a learning exercise for me as it is for them.
Miss Optimism chose to add 
Einstein added anything he could get his hands on and just loved the feel of all the different textures. MORE is MORE apparently for Einstein! He added 
Snuggle Puppy headed straight outside to gather items for his bin. He had a plan from the beginning and his bin was less about sensory and more about story. He told me to tell my “people that read your blog” that the title of this is “Mommy’s first time camping”. He is obviously excited that I am going to be coming camping for the first time in his life this upcoming summer. He used sticks, twigs, shredded paper, and rocks to create a campfire scene.
Granola Girl started with a very organized bin that can best be described as minimalist but as the time passed, she began to be influenced by her siblings and add some of the things they were adding. She used Kidfetti, an origami box, silk flower petals, seashells, shaped ice cubes, feathers, Easter grass, dyed pasta shells, a ball, a 
Dancing Queen’s sensory bin had a distinctive theme of food. She used both real and pretend food. She added corn flakes, mini marshmallows, glass beads, feathers, shells, a wooden heart, flower petals, her pill bottles, and a pretend mango (her favourite fruit), bananas and grapes. She also threw in some red dyed pasta.
To make this Easter sensory bin, I used blue and pink rice, 
