We went to home ed group this morning but after his MMR vaccine earlier this week Harlan hasn't been feeling 100% so he found it a bit overwhelming. When we got home he was watching me use paperclips to hold some crocheted pieces together and he started playing with them. I got a weak magnet and we experimented with how many paperclips it would hold. Not many! However on the end of my "grabber" I have quite a strong magnet and he was amazed at the chain of paperclips it could hold.
I had a flash of inspiration (doesn't happen as often as I'd like!) and filled a deep tray with uncooked rice and dried beans. We buried treasure in it, some metal and some plastic. He played around and worked out that the metal objects stuck to the magnet but the plastic ones didn't. For those he used the grabber to pick them up and lift them out of the tray. We haven't gone as far as finding out that some metals aren't magnetic - we'll save that for another day ;-)
When he'd had his fill of that, he began to use the rice and beans for sensory play - sprinkling, pouring, squeezing. I found it quite relaxing myself! Lastly he got his playmobil set (Ebay bargain, we'll hopefully build up a good stash of it) and decided the rice was sand and they were having a party on the beach.
By the time he'd finished, he was much calmer and happier, and my living room was rather the worse for wear! I kept the rice/bean mix to use for future play and the Dyson took care of the rice and beans that had been spilled on the carpet.
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