Sensory Dispensary: Halloween

Last week both mine and Lucy's classrooms had a spooky makeover! A combination of cobwebs, lights and pumpkins helped to set the scene for our Halloween themed week of Explore and Discover sessions. Many thanks to my team for staying late to achieve this transformation!

(Lots of time spent by a TA here weaving lights through these pumpkins to create our pumpkin chandelier)

(Sorry the pictures don't really do their work justice)

Explore and Discover:

Slime

There are lots of different recipes out there for slime but consider the needs of your class when selecting which one to use. If you have pupils who like to eat the materials they explore I wouldn't advise using this one as whilst the ingredients aren't harmful to ingest, they are not edible. We used 2 variations of a recipe for these slimes. You can find the original recipe in Pack 1 of our Dispense the Sense cards available to buy here or by contacting us on our Facebook page. To make the putty version simply add shaving foam to the recipe.

Putty slime!

This slime was more stiff and reminded me of a putty-like texture. It had less stretch but the children really enjoyed squashing, squeezing and mark making. Turning the slime containers upside down to get the slime out was fun too as it temporarily kept the containers shape before melting back into it's putty puddle.

Tapping fingers into the slime also left marks that lasted a minute before vanishing, making a fun mark making activity.

For my more dexterous pupils I bought these lovely Halloween cutters from ASDA for just £1.00. This putty slime was thick enough to use with the cutters and you could pull the excess away with ease- no sticking at all! We had some sieves for a different element of this session but one of my pupil was quick to put them to work on the slime and enjoyed watching the slime bulge through the holes and leave a lovely bumpy pattern.

Lots of opportunities for exploration and discovery here at different levels to suit differing needs: tactile and proprioceptive stimulation, mark making, exploring shape and developing fine motor skills to name just a few!

Stretchy slime

The second slime was far more stretchy than the first and even my support staff had a hard time putting it down! This particular slime would stretch and dribble down but remain in long (non-sticky!) strings. It was a really interesting texture that all pupils were keen to explore the properties of. We plopped the slime into a sieve and sure enough long ribbons of slime stretched down to the floor without snapping. This was visually mesmerising as it oozed down and gathered in a noodle-like bunch in the tray below. Letting the cool slime fall in this way onto hands was a strange sensation. As an extension for those who may be working on fine motor skills, you can add in your 'squeeze' easy grip scissors to snip these slime ribbons.

Pumpkin mash

This was the creation of one of the TAs in my team who was tasked with making a pumpkin slime. The whole pumpkin was chopped up and boiled, mashed, cornflour added and mixed spice stirred in creating a wonderful aroma. A few people did comment on how delicious it smelled but it viusally reminded them of something less pleasant! On the training day, when it was made, it was a slime but by the following day when we uncovered it was much more of a solid lump. We dubbed the mix 'pumpkin mash' and offered an array of tools with it for our sensory beings to explore. This is a fab one to try for those who cannot resist having a taste- I did try it myself... lovely flavour but with the texture of glue. As with the other activities this is a great tactile experience but also great for the olfactory and gustatory senses. Where relevant, there are opportunities to practice those fine motor skills, scooping, mashing and stirring it in the cauldron.

Apple bobbing...ish

We created our own version of apple bobbing. We added black food dye and glitter to the water to make our bubbling brew before adding red and green apples in and a few other scary surprises (spooky toy spiders etc) . The water was warm for those who wanted to reach in with their hands. We also had sieves to scoop and drain the apples out.

We had a linked activity to this one- tasting the sweet red apples and sour green ones as well as trying some toffee sauce and pumpkin seeds. Some of my pupils are not able to eat solids so we had apple and toffee sauce to try for these pupils which went down a treat!

Spashing in the warm water, scooping and dropping apples, observing them bobbing up and down was an experience in itself. You could also add in 'Crackle Baff' to create a crackling auditory experience (popping candy would also work but is short-lived). There was the option to extend this task into shape exploration and colour sorting. I left the red and green sieves, as well as a red and green tray next to the tub to allow them to sort in this way. It's quite easy to make this into a fun game for SLD pupils who need further challenging and enjoy imaginative play- become a wicked witch with a shopping list! Can they match your picture shopping list? Perhaps your recipe only calls for the green apples or only items that float at the top- can they scoop/sort accordingly? It maybe you need exact quantities- cant they count out the right amount of each item. Plenty of scope for simplifying or extending this activity according to your pupils needs and liking!

My class had an absolute hoot in our Halloween Explore & Discover sessions and they weren't the only ones. Lucy's class were getting stuck in with their sensory delights. Some of our readers have also kindly sent in their own pictures and videos of the sensory treats they had on offer for the sensory beings they support. Check out the pictures and videos below!