Simple Sensory - Play Dough and Shells

I have a child who is hypersensitive (sensory avoiding) and a child who is hyposensitive (sensory seeking). To help even the playing field in our house, we do a lot of simple sensory activities. These activities use items from around the house or they are available at the dollar store. Sometimes I make them up, sometimes I borrow from Pinterest. When they are a hit, I am happy to share!

Tonight we watched Moana. The kids have dreamed about seeing it again ever since we saw it in the theater. But sitting through a movie, even at home, makes them both wiggly. So instead of sending them to bed with the wiggles, we pulled out a simple sensory activity that went along with the movie: play dough and shells. We always keep play dough on hand, and I had picked up a bag of shells at the dollar store, although if you have a jar of shells from your beach vacation, those will work too.

The kids loved pressing the shells into the playdough to create imprints. They buried the shells so they could "dig for treasure."  The also used the shells to make faces and form letters. They even used the play dough as "glue" to combine shells to form creatures.

These activity sounds as simple as it is, but it is effective for sensory therapy because it engages varying textures and bright colors. Sensory seeks feel drawn in while sensory avoiders can manipulate the activity in a way that doesn't overwhelm them.We ended the evening on a calm note with two tired littles who were ready for bed, and they loved having "Moana shells," so I think this sensory activity was great. The only thing I would change would be to find some of the "sand playdough" to make the playtime a little more realistic and challenge my hypersensitive child to combine more textures.