Activities & Days Out / 4 September, 2019 / Nanny Anita

Chickpea Sensory Counting Tray

Over the last couple of weeks BB has suddenly started counting. He tries hard to count items correctly, sometimes he will do it perfectly, most of the time he doesn’t. Not that that matters. He is only 2 after all. As this seems to be a new favourite past time I thought I would make him a chickpea sensory counting tray to practice with.

Make sure you follow my maths board on Pinterest for more ideas. Don’t forget to save the pin for later. 

To make your own chickpea sensory counting tray you will need:

• Dried chickpeas
• Paint or liquid watercolours
• Tray
• Child friendly tweezers
• Numbers

When I dyed the chickpeas I tried a couple of different colourants; food colouring, liquid water colours, and paint. I found the food colouring was the worst one to use. The colour never set properly, even after a day of leaving them on top of the Aga. The watercolours and paint worked best, with the watercolour ones drying the quickest.

To dye the chickpeas, add them to your container, squirt in the colours, put the lid on, and shake hard until all of them are even covered. Then leave them on a baking try to dry out.

When they are all completely dry, add them to the tray.

I put some furry numbers out for he as well. Then using the tweezers he can add the correct number of chickpeas to number.

It is a sweet little sensory try for him to use. I have it set up on the side so that he can either bring it out or play with it in situ. Not only is it a fun way to introduce counting, but also it has the added bonus of helping develop those fine motor skills.

If you enjoyed this chickpea sensory counting tray be sure to check out my ladybird counting activity, speckled frog counting, and counting with clips busy bag.

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