Sensory Cupcakes with Toddlers

We helped baby sis to celebrate her 2nd birthday by making three different kinds of sensory cupcakes together.

What you need (the basics):

- some sort of tray or dish for the materials (we used a chip and dip tray from Party City)
- a messy mat to contain the mess (we used our new Messmatz silicone mat from PlaSmart which was perfect)
- cupcake liners (silicone ones work best as you can wash and re-use)
- birthday candles
- plastic spoons

2 year old baby loves sensory play at the moment. Each of the three types of sensory cupcake had a few different ingredients and tools, but the concept was the same. Explore, create and enjoy!

1. Shaving Foam Cupcakes

I added a big helping of shaving foam to the middle of the tray, along with some birthday confetti, waterbeads and small candy balls. It took baby sis a little bit of time to get used to the funny texture of the shaving foam, but she quickly got to work scooping out the foam and decorating her creations.

She especially loved being able to sprinkle the candy balls on top and put a candle in!

2. Rainbow Rice Cupcakes

Baby sis loves playing with rice, she could spend hours simply scooping and tipping it! Here I served it up with some brightly colored giant pom poms and a few different kitchen utensils.

The rice was such a contrasting material for her to work with compared to the shaving foam. She soon discovered that the cupcake liners made great little scoops!

3. Play Doh Cupcakes

We haven't had the Play Doh out in a while so baby sis really enjoyed this one. I added some buttons and Play Doh tools to the tray and let her loose! Her first stop was the tool selection!

She carefully rolled, cut, gathered and repeated over and over! She was finally ready to start making some cupcakes and decided she liked the idea of adding buttons on top.

As you can see, baby sis had a blast with these three simple invitations to make cupcakes. She was able to explore different sensory materials, whilst also working on her fine motor skills and color recognition. A really fun way to help her celebrate her birthday!