Beans!

This morning Xander had fun playing with his sensory tub. I've filled it with dried black turtle beans and small white beans, I thought they made a nice color contrast. (Just don't use red kidney beans as they can be poisonous dry.) I didn't hide anything in the tub, just gave him different containers to scoop with or put beans into. I sat right with him supervising so that he didn't eat any beans, thankfully he only tried once.

At first he was holding the scoop with his whole hand around the bowl part, it wasn't very effective.

He really loved just running his hands through the beans, it was cute. He also enjoyed scooping them up and dumping them on himself. Making a mess is fun!

One of the items I gave him to play with is the base for a chick feeder. We are getting chicks soon and I had already bought the feeder and it was sitting on my desk. I thought the little holes would be fun to pour beans into.

But all he wanted to do with the feeder is wear it as a hat! Such a goofy boy!

What I wanted Xander to do was pour the beans into different containers, what he really enjoyed doing was pouring the beans on himself and into the big tub (he actually dumped the entire tub 3 different times!!). I let him do what he wanted, he was having such a blast. I played with him but I did it my way, scooping up beans and pouring them into a different container. I did it over and over, showing him how I held the scoop by the handle. He never really showed any interest in scooping the beans into a different container but by the end he was holding the scoop by it's handle! I definitely had a moment of mommy pride when I saw that!

It was a lot of fun and well worth the mess. Next time I will vacuum the carpet first though, we now have a lot of dog hair in the sensory tub. Thankfully Poppy Seed and McCoy are black and white so the hairs go with the beans color scheme. Xander says I like this Mom!