Glow in the Dark Sensory Sink Letter Hunt

This month the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series brings you glowing dough recipes! We hid letters in glow in the dark gelatin to add literacy excitement to our sensory play.

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Glow in the Dark Spider Webs

These spooky spider webs are a creative way to craft fine motor fun for Halloween. Use them for a color matching activity. Alternatively you can make and play with these without the black light but we just love kids' activities that glow! 

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DIY Glowing Scratch Art Paper

We love everything that glows! We created DIY scratch art paper that glows when you draw! This homemade craft supply is fun to make and beautiful to use for kids' artwork, too.

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Play & Learn with UV Black Light

Everything is more fun when it glows in the dark! Here are our best educational and glowing activities for kids to play and learn!

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10 Ways to Play with IncredibleFoam

We had the opportunity to review Discount School Supply's IncredibleFoam Dough by Colorations. We have played with it every single day since we've received it and we are still finding new ways to play and explore with this unique sensory dough! 

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Why Light Table Play?

This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through to Amazon from this page and purchase anything, Still Playing School will get a small profit for referring you!

What is a light table?

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Glow in the Woods - Guest Post

Glow in the Woods is an online community of baby loss parents who write so eloquently that I find myself sharing most of the posts published there, complete with quotes that speak to my soul like an old friend.

"One of us, only half-joking, said this will be a place where us medusas can take off our hats, none minding the sight of all the snakes. Because not only can we bear the sight of each other—we crave it."

I found the site in the early days of Violet's diagnosis.  I am so glad to have been able to find comfort and connections there.

I am also honored to be guest posting a bit about our story.

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Ideas for Using Inside Out to Discuss Emotions with Kids

This post has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. As always, all opinions and enthusiasm are 100% ours! #PlayNGrow #CollectiveBias

Have you seen the movie Inside Out yet? We did and loved it! We used the characters and themes to discuss an important early childhood (and lifelong) concept with our kids. Here are our ideas for how to use this popular movie to talk about emotions with your children.

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Musical Water Experiments on the Light Table

Aren't these colors beautiful on the light table? They make music as well making it a multiple sensory experience that preschoolers will love!

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The Simultaneousness of Grief

I remember reading Erin's blog right after Violet died.  She was writing about the educational and enriching activities that she always does with her son, Chase.  I remember waiting every day for her to write about her other son, Christian, the one she lost.  I wanted to read about grief while I was grieving.  I wanted to know how the journey was a year later.  Yet, she was cooking, crafting, teaching.  I marveled that she was living a full and happy life.

Now that I am further along in my own grief, I realize that she WAS showing me exactly what life can be like a year later.

Violet would be 17 months old tomorrow.  I had a difficult time this weekend imagining the brown haired girl she would be, toddling along, finding all the purple Easter eggs.  I still have days that make it hard to breathe.  Sometimes I write about them, but sometimes I don't.  I always want to talk about her.  Instead I attempt to find ways to incorporate her into our lives seamlessly.

I am simultaneously grieving and mothering all three of my children at all times.  I need the balance of three.

I am holding, missing, loving, laughing, feeding, aching, crafting, bathing, grieving, nurturing, smiling, talking, healing, writing, playing, remembering.

Before Violet was born, I heard this song and quoted on Facebook, "What makes a falling star go by?  Why does it fall and where does it go? And how does it make that glittery glow?"  I was anticipating her arrival as my shooting star, brief, beautiful, then gone.



As I'm writing this D is napping.  E is upstairs playing.  Sesame Street is left on the abandoned television.  This song comes on.  Maybe it's a coincidence.  Or maybe, as I am mothering the other two in my daily life, she is reminding me that she's not that far away either.

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Nocturnal Animals Preschool Unit: Using a KWL Chart

We love KWL Charts to inspire, organize, and introduce a new unit of study for our homeschool preschool. Here we used the graphic organizer to discuss and record what we want to learn about nocturnal animals.

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Letter Stamping on the Light Table

We loved learning with our alphabet slime so much that we had to put the clear slime back on the light table for this month's version of 12 Months of Sensory Dough: Slime Dough!

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Penguin Small World Play on the Light Table

Our light table transformed into a beautiful, icy penguin small world play area with a few simple supplies and real snow!

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Leprechaun Bait

When our Window Rainbow failed to immediately lure in a leprechaun we knew we needed to kick it up a notch!  We decided to mix our own leprechaun bait!

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Solar System Bracelet Craft for Kids

We love hands on solar system learning activities! We've made plastic lid planets and practiced planetary order with a planet hop game. Today we're sharing a craft that also helps kids review the planets in order as they make a really cool jewelry!

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Five Little Pumpkins on the Light Table

Five Little Pumpkins is a favorite Halloween poem to retell in our house! We've already shared our Fine Motor Five Little Pumpkins so for this activity we used recycled materials to make dry erase jack-o-lanterns for the light table.

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Capture Your Grief - Day 27

Day 27: Artwork

I found Suzanne through Glow in the Woods, a fantastic community for baby loss families (and the first online resource where I truly felt "at home").  She also learned during her pregnancy that Nathaniel would not live long after birth.  Late last summer and early into the fall, we traded emails, sharing our stories, babies, and souls.  I will never forget staring at Nathaniel's beautiful pictures in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep and Violet still rolled in my belly.

Before Violet was born, Suzanne sent me sage tea from her garden to stop my milk production.  She also sent a ceramic mug with a tea cup insert to brew the tea and a candle.  I have tried to since buy the same scent of the candle in Pacifica's perfume line, but it's unavailable.  The smell was perfect and I know this sounds silly, but the color of the mug was perfect, too.  I felt so comforted by this friend so far away.  I still use the mug regularly, thinking of Suzanne and wishing we were having tea or coffee together throughout this first, difficult year for both of us.

I vaguely remember her asking me awhile ago if she could draw Violet.  Of course, I agreed then promptly forgot about it.  Until the package arrived yesterday.  When I saw her name on the return address, I knew whatever was inside would be perfect.

It was, all of it.  The card, the artwork.  Her portrait of our girl.

The photo she used is the one where Violet opened her one eye as much as she could.  She never opened her other eye.  The more I stare at this piece, the more of V I see coming through.  It's almost as it transforms and becomes more alive as I study it.  Her lips, especially, are perfect.  It's more "her" than the photograph.  To say I love it is an understatement.

Suzanne got it all perfect, again.  Thank you my wonderfully talented and loving friend.

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Alphabet Slime

Clear sensory slime and transparent letters on the light table created an irresistible fine motor literacy invitation!

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Jello Ocean Sensory Exploration

Ocean animals live at different depths in salt water. We used animal figures, light, and gelatin to explore this science concept in a hands on sensory activity for kids.

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OK to Wake Clock Review

Our children are early risers.  Most days they are both up by 6 at the latest.  As parents who love their sleep (and then lots of caffeine), we're not quite sure where they get this from. Someday they will be teenagers and we will be up first, drinking coffee in the kitchen as we discuss what time they got in the night before while waiting for them to rouse.  But for now, they wake us by climbing in our bed and cooing loudly, respectively, ready to go the minute they open their precious eyes. YAWN.

One thing that we purchased shortly after D was born to help E is the OK to Wake Clock by American Innovative.

We researched several options to teach E when it was time to get out of bed, but we decided on this clock for several reasons:

- The wake time AND brightness are programmable.  After we tried the clock for a few days, I realized that setting the green glow (that goes off when it is time to wake up) to a lower setting was a great idea for the days when she would sleep in.  It wasn't as noticeable to her as she would stir in her bed so sometimes she would go back to sleep.

- The biggest added bonus of this particular clock was the nap timer.  I can program in how long I want E to have a quiet time in her room (half hour, an hour, 2 hours) and she will have the consistency of the clock to show her when it's okay to leave her room just like she does in the morning.

- The clock has cute animated features like a winking, smiling face.  We love anything anthropomorphic in our house!

- It may seem like a minor detail, but you can change the face plate from green to pink and back again.  E LOVES her pink and I love that we can change it back if D wants to use it later (and would rather have it be green).

- Also extending the use of the clock is the alarm function that we can use when, maybe someday, we need to wake the kids by a certain time instead of teaching them NOT to wake until a certain time.  Oh, I can dream, right?

And now for the only part we don't love about the clock:

- It runs on batteries with no option for an AC adapter.  We use rechargeable batteries to help with the cost and carbon footprint, but if this option would bother you, too, you can check out American Innovative's handy Compare Products chart (scroll down and click the Compare Products tab) to see that the Teach Me Time clock plugs in to the wall but doesn't offer the nap timer.  Decisions, decisions!

American Innovative is generously extending a discount code for Still Playing School's readers to try their products.  Purchase products through their site for the next six months and get 20% off by using the code StillPlayingSchool20.  If you do buy something, please also comment here and let me know what you chose!    It's almost like we went shopping together (without leaving the house)!

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We purchased the OK to Wake Clock at full price on our own, but then contacted American Innovative afterward to inquire about a discount code for our readers.  As always, opinions are 100% my own.

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