Dig! Find! Learn!

Young children love challenges, they also love to find treasure! By adding some numbers and tongs to this classic sensory activity, you can challenge your child and still have fun. For younger children you can omit the tongs and focus on color instead of number recognition.

1. Gather your materials. You will need a container, a few cups of dry rice, some cheap plastic numbers (I got mine for $1 at Wal-mart), and some ice tongs.

2. Place some of the numbers at the bottom of the container to make it challenging.

3. Have your child pour in the rice. Add some more numbers.

4. Using the tongs dig and pick out the numbers. When a number is found ask your child what it is. If they know, praise them; if they don't, tell them what it is and move on to the next! For children who are not yet able to use tongs, using their hands is great. If they are not recognizing numbers yet, you can ask them what color the numbers are - or just let them explore!

If you want to include scooping and pouring, use a larger container that offers more space to do that. After we found all the numbers my son counted them, popped them back in the container with the rice and we started again!