5 Toddler Tuff Tray Ideas for Your Garden

One thing I miss about being a Preschool leader is being able to see little faces light up with wonder at whatever new experience has been lovingly set out in the sensory tray. (I also miss the little faces themselves, of course!)

I thought I’d share a few ideas that may entertain your little ones this weekend:

Flour and small world – my minibeast is obsessed with cars and construction vehicles, so this was an easy way to introduce elements of mark making. We made patterns + roads in the flour, examining the tyre tracks + discussing width. We also drew cars + wrote our names using fingers, paintbrushes + sticks. My little bug decided that the flour was snow, + his cars all needed a car wash – plenty of fun!

Use whatever small world toys your little one enjoys – the main part of this experience is interacting with the flour, so the toys are simply an enticement to get stuck in!

Making lemonade – We had some very old citrus fruit, so I put it to use in a scented discovery tray! I sliced lemons, limes, + oranges, + sent the toddler to find some. I provided a selection of bowls, spoons, cups + measures, + let him loose! He decided it was his shop + insisted we all have drinks. He particularly enjoyed using tweezers to pick out the slices, so I challenged him to separate out the green fruit for my ‘drink’. He really enjoyed this tray, + it smelt divine!

Flowers + blossoms – My minibeast loves picking flowers for me (I know, too sweet!), so we tend to have flower heads scattered all over the garden. We’re lucky to have a wide variety of flowers (I’d love to claim it was all my skill, but… nope) which we collected together. I then provided a hammer, tweezers, paper, + clay, + we examined them. My little bug loved hammering the petals to make ‘paint’.

I also used up an old bouquet of flowers by adding them to the tray along with some paint. My little one loved printing + painting with his flowers so much that he got into the tray with them!

Pompom sorting - Inspired by an Emotion Bugs session, I poured a bag of pompoms into the tuff tray, added some jars + wooden tongs, + challenged my little one to sort the pompoms by colour. The cats enjoyed this nearly as much as he did - I'm still finding pompoms around my garden!

SMASHING - This was probably the minibeast's favourite activity: I emptied some expired crackers onto a tray, added a toy hammer + potato masher, + let him loose! He then brought over his construction vehicles and played with his 'rubble' before we scattered the crumbs for the birds. We also had lots of fun repeating this with egg shells!

These learning opportunities are open ended, so your little one can really run with it. Instead of catching up with chores while your toddler plays happily, take time for you, Mama. You deserve it.