One Dollar Wednesday

So I'm starting a new little feature on the blog: One Dollar Wednesday! If you know me, you know I'm quite thrifty. If you've been following this blog, you know that Camp, my 9 month old, enjoys a variety of different homemade toys. With all of that in mind, I want to share some great $1 finds, projects, and ideas with the world all of my fan-base. Each week (hopefully) on the "One Dollar Wednesday" post, I will share a way to excite, engage, and entertain a baby, toddler, child, or easily amused fun loving adult for about one dollar.

<Insert cool logo that I have no idea how to create here>

Today's "One Dollar Wednesday" share is great for older babies and toddlers. The project is based on a sensory bin that I saw on Pinterest using a variety of the mom's old scrunchies. You can find that nifty little idea here.  Since I realized that scrunchies were out quite some time ago , I didn't have any (or maybe I put them in the 80's dress-up party box) lying around the house to use.  As I was cruising the aisles of Family Dollar, I came across a ten piece assortment of bold colored stretch headbands for the price of, you guessed it, ONE DOLLAR.  These are quite popular so I think you can find them pretty much anywhere, but the point is to only spend a buck, so you can pick them up at Family Dollar like me or try your luck at Dollar Tree. Anyway, you get a lot more stretchy headbands for your money than scrunchies, and if your child gets tired of playing with them, you have a great new accessory that might inspire a workout or two at the gym. I took the tags off and put all the headbands in a clear, plastic shoebox that we already had around. Stretchy Headbands in a Clear Shoebox and Abracadabra: 

A Stretchy Band Sensory Box! 

An example image of stretchy headbands

First moments with his Stretchy Band Sensory Box

 Camp has played with his snazzy new "learning toy" for five days in a row and finds a new way to use it each time. The first thing he did was just explore the box itself. He enjoyed peeking in the transparent sides to view all the colorful bands. Then, he worked on trying to take the lid off and open the box. He played around with the lid.

Finally, the stretchy bands really made their debut. Camp pulled them out to examine them. He put one in his mouth. He spread some out on the floor. With a little help from me, he learned how to stretch them.

We played the "put it on your head and shake it off" game. 

Over the next several days, he would continue to get all of the bands out of the box and disperse them throughout the house. I showed him how to fling one across the room. I put them on the different toys of his exersaucer, and he pulls on them and stretches them out like he's doing his exercises.  Also, I stretched the bands around the open box and created a guitar that we can strum to make varied sounds.

For now, we're mostly using the box of bands for free exploration. Camp is so curious and loves to examine everything, so I'm letting him find out things on his own and discover ways to interact with these objects.

Some ideas for more direct teaching opportunities are counting and sorting by color, design, or size (width). They make a great lesson on properties of solid objects and can be described as flexible, colored, soft, smooth, stretchy, and opaque. What are your ideas for making the most of the stretchy band sensory box?