Halloween Water Bead Sensory Play

With Halloween not too far away - we have been enjoying some Halloween Sensory Play together. Now the children are all at school during the day, I am finding bringing us together for some calm play time after tea is really invaluable. They all come back tired after all the fun they've had and at times can really irritate one another. These activities are channelling their attention and giving them something fun and positive to do together. 

I haven't had water beads in the house for a while. The last time we used them was over the Summer for the Frozen Water Bead activity and the Salt Ice Experiment we did over Valentines Day. 

They're a great media for the children to play with but are not edible so full supervision is required at all times. They are really bouncy too so that's something to keep in mind when preparing to play with them. 

What did I use?

Purple and Green water beads - watch the video below to see how many we needed to create this play invitation. I did intend on just using the purple beads. Once they had expanded we had nowhere near enough so another packet was required. All details for this can be found in the video. 

I also scattered around some wooden numbers. I use these a lot in my set ups. Although the children can now all count confidently to 13 - yay! We have been looking at putting two numbers together to see if we can read the number. I have found them to be a great prompt to count too. The children pick them up and use the numbers to represent other things too. They were just £2. A great buy! 

Other activities we have used them in - Dinosaur Sensory Play, Birthday Celebration Sensory Play, Five Little Ducks Nursery Rhyme Play.

I added an artificial plant that I purchased from Ikea, a sprinkling of star confetti (which I scooped up after the activity so I can use again). I raided the play stash to gather materials such as spoons, tweezers and whisks and I scattered them around. 

Within the tray itself I added some cauldrons that I picked up from Hobbycraft for around £2 for 4. Some bats that had the most delightful texture that I picked up from Home Bargains, some eye balls also from Home Bargains. 

All in all the items in the tray cost around £5. Many of them I shall go on to use again and they will go into storage then ready to use in years to come. 

The children were delighted to come and play with this way. As I mentioned above it's been a good while since we have played with water beads so they were itching to get stuck in and play. I popped on some spooky music that played quietly in the background and I then took a back seat just allowing them to play freely. 

The tray is from Home Sense. I purchased it a couple of years ago for around £12. It was worth every penny. It is a fantastic size to fit all 3 of my children around it and is great for containing activity materials, particularly indoors!

Potions were being created, beads were being picked up with care using the tweezers. Hands were being submerged in the cool beads. Lots of filling and emptying and sharing too! 

The bats attracted lots of interested. We spoke about how they sleep and when they come out to play. The boys in particular were really interested so I must create something to discuss this further with them. I must check out the book stash too to see if I have any stories I can share with them.