Boe’s started school recently, and he’s struggling a bit with after school sensory meltdowns.
As a child who has noise sensitivity, the transition to being at school hasn’t gone as easy as it could have gone, especially as he’s in a double reception class with 59 other children.
I’ve learned the hard way that sensory meltdowns are on a totally other scale compared to just the usual meltdowns, as many SEN parents will tell you, and so we’ve been trying to find some useful resourses to help him self-regulate when he returns home.
Our first attempt is some homemade playdough to help take him on a calming sensory journey.
We’re HUGE fans of playdoh in our house, but our current batch of little pots of imagination have all been mixed in together (ew!) and for this particular activity I needed a white-ish creamy colour, so I put on my “Pinterest-Mum” hat and made a small batch from scratch.
How To Make Playdoh
1 cup of plain flour
1/2 cup of salt
1/2 cup of cold water
1/2 tbsp cooking oil
4 drops of Lavender pure essential oil
Instructions:
1) In one bowl, mix the flour and salt together
2) In a seperate bowl, mix the water, oil and lavender together.
3) Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients while stirring, until all the ingredients are combined and stick together.
4) Once combined, dust a smooth surface with flour and then knead the dough.
If your playdoh feels quite sticky, continue to dust with more flour and keep kneading until it’s less tacky but still moldable.
And that’s it – fabulous playdough in 4 easy steps!
And the good news is, it keeps for ages – just wrap it in cling film or a plastic lidded pot and pop it in the fridge to use again next time.
To get the activity ready for Boe’s return from school, I printed a Moon Playdoh mat from Twinkl, and found circular items in Boe’s play boxes, with the idea that he could roll out some playdoh moons and try each tool to make craters in the moons and see which ones worked best.
The outcome:
It was a complete success! Boe came and sat down with me right away and started playing. There was no after school stress, or signs of a sensory meltdowns and it kept him entertained for about an hour.
He was also quite chatty about how his day went without prompting and I had more information on what they did at school in that hour than I have done in the last week 😂
He moved on from making moons and decided to make dotty ghosts towards the end with the googly eyes. I love how kid’s imaginations work – they always seem to find ways to be creative when left to their own devices, don’t they!
I hope you’ve found this blog post useful – do let me know in the comments if you’re planning on making this, and what results you’ve had from the children!
Happy days,
Plinky and Boe
