We are exploring the Five Senses of Christmas. Christmas time (or the winter holidays in general) are filled with sensory experiences and it is a wonderful time to explore the five senses. I will share several new posts this next week about our Five Senses of Christmas unit…
Today, I want to share these fun little candy cane tubes I made for the kids to explore their sense of sight…
These are those candy filled plastic candy cane shaped tubes that you can buy just about in any store you walk into. It is a good excuse to buy yourself some candy but be sure to save the tubes…
I filled the tubes with a variety of materials….
- Baby oil and a small amount of colored water
- Tiny, colorful holiday trinkets and beads
- Water, glitter, and small amount of Glycerine
I hot glued the red candy cane cap back onto the top (use a cool glue gun or another good water-proof glue). A few of my tubes slightly leaked so I added tape around the top to help stop control the problem…
I set the candy cane sensory tubes out for play both at the table and on the light table. My students pretty much walked around with them all day long. Before they played with them, we talked about how to take care of them. My class did great with them and even the leaky one’s held up to all the play…
Through out the day, I saw the children hanging the candy canes on door knobs, on the back of our shelves, on hooks. They carried them hooked around their arms and loved arranging them in and out of my two clear flower vases…
I will keep the candy cane tubes out for as long as they last. So far, so good! I might even go ahead and let the children make one to take home. I didn’t yet because I want to perfect how to glue the top on so there is no chance of leaking…
For added candy cane tube play…
- Add the empty tubes to your water table
- Fill the empty tubes with colored sand (red and white) for a beautiful ornament to take home
- Make the tubes into an I-Spy game
- Fill the tubes with bells, beans, and other items that make different sounds….
Things to note:
The type of candy cane tube you buy makes a difference as to whether or not you can put liquid in the tubes. Cheaper made tubes will definitely leak. These are just as fun to play with in the water table or to fill with other types of objects like beads as an alternative to liquid material.
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