Apple Sensory Play Ideas

Through the years I’ve shared a lot of different fall themed activities, including pumpkin sensory activities, pumpkin STEM and apple STEM. If all of that isn’t enough, here are some apple themed sensory ideas for the classroom or at home.

Doughs of all kinds are classic sensory material for kids of all ages, and there are lots of options when it comes to adding apple. You can go with the classic no-cook apply playdough from Kindergarten Worksheets and Games, which uses conditioner to make a soft a fluffy play material.

Or try the apple cinnamon play dough from Play to Learn Preschool, which is more of a classic dough consistency and perfect for making play pies and cookies. And you can make cloud dough/moon sand with an apple pie twist with this recipe from Little Bins for Little Hands. They also have a fun recipe for applesauce oobleck that would be a lot of fun to make and play with.

Any of these would be great as part of a sensory bin, but another fun thing to try is dried chickpeas dyed different colors to look like apples. It’s easy to do and you can use them year after year. Get the tutorial from Active Littles. Or you could use oatmeal (Fantastic Fun and Learning) or rice (Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails) as a base for your bin.

For very little kids, you might want to do a painting project and sensory experience in one with a sensory painting bag. This one from Views from a Stepstool has an apple theme, and little ones will love squishing the paint around.

Older kids can paint and do printmaking with apples, whether whole apples, halves or slices. Check out the ideas at Fun-A-Day to get started.

Apple-themed snacks can round out a day of apple sensory play. If kids can have peanut butter, this can be as simple as apple slices with peanut butter and different toppings like sprinkles, granola or chocolate chips. Or cut the apple into discs to make apple “doughnuts” like these from Beyond Cereal. Other easy options include baked cinnamon apple chips (Carrie’s Experimental Kitchen) or no-bake cinnamon apples (The Honour System).

Easy Apple Crafts for Kids

Apple STEM Activities for Back to School

Apple Tree Math Activity

Apple Themed Cutting Practice

Next Plan Idea:

Playdough Learning Activities

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

Next Plan Idea:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply