Bunny Care Sensory Tub

Here’s a bunny sensory tub I put together a while ago. There are a lot of textures and objects for kids to explore. Most of these objects, you can use to care for a real bunny. They can learn to feed and care for these plush bunnies.



What’s in the tub?
Three bunnies,
Bunny food,
Hand full of hay,
Bowl,
Measuring cup,
Water bottle,
ABC blocks,
Yogurt treats,
Chewable ice cream cone,
Plush carrot,
Shavings,
And a paper bag.



Since some children will get a real bunny this Easter, Click here for a rabbit care guide.
Kids Bunny Fun

Gerbil Sensory Tub

What’s in the tub:

Hamster/gerbil food,
Bowl,
Water bottle,
ABC blocks,
Chew sticks,
Cardboard tube,
1 gerbil,
Exercise wheel,
Measuring cup,
and aspen shavings as the base.



This sensory tub is very similar to the hamster one. The only differences are the gerbil and the cardboard tube. Our gerbils love cardboard tubes so I thought I’d include one. Other things you can include are small paper bags, pieces of cardboard, tissue boxes, pieces of paper, wooden houses, scoops, extra bowls etc. It all depends on the size of your tub and how many kids are there. Since the gerbil was so big, I decided to have the wheel next to the tub.



Since plush gerbils are hard to find, some substitutes are mice, rats or of course, hamsters. I know TY makes them as beanie babies and Aurora makes rodents as well. You can usually find some good bargains for small stuffed animals on Ebay. I have never seen a plastic critter or rodent set, but if you could find something like that, it’d work even better. This particular gerbil is handmade and was customized from a picture of our first gerbil named, Fudge. I wish I still had the link to the person who made him, but I can’t remember her name. She specialized in making plush cartoon type rodents. To make it more realistic, you can include a pair of gerbils since gerbils should almost always live in pairs.


Some other base ideas include shredded paper or sunflower seeds. Gerbils love to chew on and nest in shredded paper and ours love eating sunflower seeds. Cheap sunflower seeds can be found at feed stores. I think a 5 lb bag costs $3.00 at our local feed store. They also have cheap bird seed, hamster food, guinea pig food or other types of seeds if you wanted to use any of those as a base. I hope these ideas have been helpful.
Here are photos of our gerbils that we’ve had over the past five years.
Mozart, Sophie and the brothers, both called Fudge have all passed away. Our current gerbils are brothers called, the Brownies.











Guide to Gerbils as Pets
Gerbil Coloring Pages

Hamster Care Cut and Paste Activity

For this cut and paste activity, print out a large picture of this
or something similar.
Then have your child choose which accessories they would like to add to the cage. If your child is too young, you can cut out the pictures for them and let them glue the pictures themselves.


Your choice of hamster:

Accessories

I couldn't find a good picture of an empty wheel so this one has a hamster on it.

Choose from these Sleeping Quarters

Choose from these chewable items.

Choose from the following treats.

You could also do this with other types of pets and by finding or taking your own sets of pictures.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

All other pictures were found using Google Images.

hamster Care Sensory Tub

For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting the critter care sensory tubs that I made. Keep in mind that these are for preschool age children or older. I think younger kids would put this stuff in their mouth and even though the stuff is fresh out of the packages, I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving some of these materials to them.
I’ll start off with a hamster care tub.

What’s in the tub:


Aspen shavings as the base,
Hamster food,
Bowl,
Water bottle,
ABC blocks,
Chew sticks,
TV,
Strawberry,
Two hamsters,
Exercise wheel,
And a measuring cup for scooping and pouring.

The tub is actually a critter pet carrier. The shavings are aspen with no other kinds of wood mixed in as I mentioned above. We use these for all our critters here at home. We don’t have hamsters at the moment, but we have in the passed and these shavings worked well for them. The shavings are mostly soft wood but you’ll occasionally find some harder wood chips. It’s a little dusty though, but it’s a material that you can scoop, pour and burry things in.



The biggest thing in the tub is the exercise wheel. It’s in the tub for the first picture for demonstration, but I took it out for the rest of the pictures. If I were putting this in a larger sensory table, I’d add my extra wheel which is the same size.


The bowl is actually for a hamster and the food is hamster or gerbil food. We have two gerbils so this is the kind of food I used. The bottle is the perfect size for hamsters or gerbils as well. I didn’t fill it because wet shavings can make a huge mess, but it has a little plastic fish inside which would normally tell you how much water you have left in the bottle.



The TV and strawberry are of course for hamsters to sleep. Since hamsters spend three fourths of the day sleeping, they need hideouts. I thought the TV and strawberry were cute. Unfortunately, these hamsters were too big, but I wanted to show normal sized sleeping quarters for hamsters. Other ideas for hideouts are the bottom part of a milk gallon container with a door cut out of it, tissue boxes or paper bags.





I included a bunch of ABC blocks because hamsters need plenty of wood to chew on. Since their teeth keep growing, chewing on the wood helps file their teeth down. I also included some chew sticks to show what hamster treats look like. Hamsters can be given some fresh fruits and veggies. We used to give ours a grape or piece of carrot for a treat. They also sell a variety of treats for hamsters at the pet stores.



The two plush hamsters are made by Aurora. I’d prefer plastic animals that way the shavings don’t get stuck to them, but you can just pick the shavings off the fur. Also, I wanted to note that in real life, there should never be more than one hamster to a cage unless they are dwarf hamsters. For our playing purposes, we can have as many hamsters as we’d like. Hamsters make better pets for older children, but some of you have children of different ages in your family. This is a way for little ones to experience hamsters without the worries of dropping the hamster, getting bit or overfeeding it.



We were going to do something similar to this at the preschool last summer, but like a lot of plans there, they get scrapped. However, I thought it was still worth including on the blog because kids love pets and I thought it would be useful for them to get introduced to the materials necessary to care for them. It’s important to teach children about responsible pet ownership.

ASPCA Hamster Care
Hamster Coloring Pages

Telling Stories with Cats

In honor of National Cat Day on October, 29th. Yes, I’m three days late due to illness and trying to find the right pictures.
I originally thought of this as a matching activity with cards or a file folder game which you can still do by making two copies of each picture. However, I’ve also thought of telling stories with cats. They can use any or all of the pictures to tell a story of a cat’s day or they can use their imagination and go beyond a normal day for a cat. You can even find other pictures to expand and go in a totally different direction. Your children can learn some of the basics of cat care. Cats need food and water like humans. Cats also need a bath although not as often as humans. Cats can be friends with dogs, cats come in different shapes, sizes and colors and cats can be silly and playful like the rest of us. They need toys for fun and scratching posts for exercising their muscles and for getting rid of the dead layer that is on top of their claws. It’s like when we cut our nails. Mostly, they need to know that someone loves and cares for them. I’ve included some normal things that a cat would do as well as silly pictures to create a more eventful story. I’ve also included different breeds and colors of cats including ragdolls because I have two of them. Also, I obviously couldn’t find eighteen pictures of the same cat doing different things so they all had to be different, but you can still tell a story. I hope you enjoy this activity and later I’ll post others with different kinds of animals.

 

 

 

All pictures were found using Google Images and they are clip art.