Soothing Scented Goodnight Moon Inspired Sensory Play

It's time for another Virtual Book Club for Kids activity! The author this month is Margaret Wise Brown. We chose to play with a soothing lavender scented sensory bin to get kids ready for nap or bedtime as we read Goodnight Moon!

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Our toddler D has been giving up his naps. When he doesn't nap it's a long day. When he does nap, it's a long bedtime. Recently I've discovered that lavender essential oil is magical. I put a few drops on a tissue and put the tissue in our pillowcases. We all sleep better and deeper, with more vivid dreams, myself included!

So I've been thinking a lot about adjusting sleep schedules combined with the recent daylight savings time change and lavender. We decided to continue on with the bedtime soothing theme of Goodnight Moon for scented sensory play inspired by this classic book. We were fortunate enough to find most of the props we needed from the story in our collection of dollhouse items and tiny figures!

The key items in the story that we couldn't find or that weren't waterproof we cut from craft foam. I added a few drops of lavender essential oil to warm water colored violet with gel food coloring. Tools for this children to use included a strainer and a few scoops. As a finishing touch we sprinkled our favorite star shaped bath confetti on the surface of the calming water!

The kids couldn't resist diving right in to play! You could set this sensory invitation up as a story time bath before bed or a sensory sink as well!

E found the cow and the moon to reenact the nursery rhyme depicted in the book. She also enjoyed making a list after we read the book of what items we needed for our bin. She helped me find each prop around our home. It gave her such ownership over the planning of this activity.

I challenged our preschooler to use an ice cube tray to match rhyming sets from the story. You can see she found clock and sock, bear and chair, mush and brush, and kitten and mitten!

Toddler D enjoyed transferring scented water from the bin to a pie pan with his scoop as I set up a little dinner party for our bears. He sure does love to pour and dump water! I'm looking forward to outside play with him as soon as it is warmer but for now we set up a blanket under our play area which can be thrown in the dryer if it gets too wet.

This post is part of our series with the Virtual Book Club for Kids. Several other amazing blogs are also bringing you ideas for activities based on Margaret Wise Brown's books this month including Goodnight Moon, Runaway Bunny, and The Important Book.

Goodnight Moon

Goodnight Moon Gross Motor from 3 Dinosaurs

Goodnight Moon I Spy Game from Inspiration Laboratories

Goodnight Moon Book Words Printable Activity from Lalymom

Runaway Bunny

M&M Bunny Patterning Activity for Kids from Toddler Approved

The Important Book

The Important Book: Making An All About Me Book by Growing Book By Book

The Important Book Activity from Mama Miss

Big Red Barn

Big Red Barn Preschool Vocabulary Activities from Ready-Set-Read

Big Red Barn Animal Match Up from Playdough to Plato