Two Lambs

Sensory Rice is fantastic for introducing pre-writing patterns. This can help children to smoothly transition to writing alphabet letters. It's a fun way to introduce the foundational skills that are necessary to develop fluent handwriting.
•Practicing Basic Strokes: Children can use their fingers or small tools to trace pre-writing strokes such as vertical lines, horizontal lines, circles and zigzags in a tray of sensory rice. These strokes are essential components of letters and numbers and give children practice with the motions they'll need for writing.
•Building Muscle Memory: Repeating these strokes in rice helps build muscle memory without the pressure of using pencil and paper. The tactile experience of tracing lines in the rice allows children to become more familiar with pre-writing patterns in a a relaxed, fun way.
•Creating Curves And Shapes: Forming circular shapes and curves in rice helps children practice the rounded movements they'll need for letters like"o", "c', and "s". These activities build fluency with movements they'll use later to form specific letters.
•Learning Spatial Awareness: When children draw patterns in rice, they practice controlling the size and spacing of shapes and lines. This spatial awareness is important for writing within the lines and creating evenly spaced letters and words on a page.
•Developing Directionality: Sensory rice can help reinforce left-to-right and top-to-bottom patterns which are key for reading and writing. For example, you can have children practice "writing" from left to right in the rice, encouraging this natural directionality.
•Encouraging Control And Precision: Drawing smaller shapes or more complex patterns in the rice helps children improve their control and precision. These refined movements will make forming letters easier when they transition to writing on paper.
•Reinforcing Visual Patterns: By repeatedly tracing different pre-writing shapes and patterns in the rice, children start to recognise the common visual patterns that make up letters. This visual familiarity is helpful for reading and writing.
These sensory activities can help your child gain the skills and confidence to begin formal writing when they are ready.
Photo courtesy of Chingyunsong via Vecteezy

Sensory rice provides valuable sensory stimulation that can support learning to write by engaging a child's sense of touch, promoting focus and creating a calming, enjoyable learning environment. Here's how:
•Tactile Stimulation: The texture of the rice offers a unique sensory experience, giving children different sensations as they touch, sift and trace in it. This tactile input helps children become more aware of their hands and fingers which can improve their control and confidence in fine motor tasks like writing.
•Building Focus And Calm: The repetitive, soothing actions of playing with sensory rice can have a calming effect, helping children focus and regulate their energy. A calm, focused state makes it easier for them to concentrate on writing tasks and following instructions.
•Developing Tolerance To Textures: For children who may be sensitive to certain textures, sensory rice can help them become more comfortable with varied tactile experiences. This sensory tolerance is important as it makes them more adaptable and less distracted by sensory input when they are learning to write on paper.
•Strengthening Hand Awareness (Proprioception): The pressure and movement involved in manipulating rice help improve children's proprioception, or awareness of where their hands are in space. This awareness is critical for controlling hand movements when forming letters or writing inlines.
•Encouraging Exploration And Creativity: Sensory rice invites children to explore freely, drawing shapes or patterns in a low-pressure setting. This freedom lets them experiment with pre-writing patterns without fear of making mistakes. This can help build the confidence they need when learning to write.
•Reinforcing Sensory-Motor Pathways: By combining the sensory input of feeling the rice with motor activities such as tracing and drawing, sensory rice helps strengthen the brain's sensory-motor pathways. This integration supports motor planning and control, essential for fluid, controlled writing.
•Supporting Memory And Retention: Multi-sensory activities, like playing with sensory rice, help reinforce memory by connecting sensory input with motor activity. This experience helps children better remember the shapes and patterns needed for writing.
By engaging multiple senses, sensory rice helps children develop the fine motor control, focus and confidence they'll need to successfully learn to write.
Photo courtesy of Johnstocker.

For your child to be able to learn to write they must first be able to use their hands and eyes simultaneously. Activities with Sensory Rice are perfect for helping them develop the skill of hand-eye coordination. Here’s how:
•Tracing shapes and letters: When children use their fingers or tools to trace shapes, letters or patterns in a tray of sensory rice, they must coordinate their hand movements with what they see. This practice enhances their ability to control hand movements based on visual input, which is essential for writing.
•Scooping and pouring: Scooping rice with spoons or cups and pouring it into different containers requires precise hand movements guided by sight. These actions improve the coordination between the eyes and hands, similar to how children will need to control a pencil when writing on paper.
•Filling outlines or templates: You can place stencils or outlines of letters, numbers or shapes in the rice, and children can fill or trace them using their fingers or small tools. This activity promotes focus on aligning their hand movements with visual shapes, a skill needed for forming letters correctly on paper.
•Picking up small objects: Adding small items like beads, buttons or figurines https://twolambs.com.au/collections/figurines to the rice and having children find them and pick them out helps refine fine motor precision and hand-eye coordination. This precision is directly transferable to tasks like drawing small letters or focusing on writing within the lines.
•Sorting or transferring rice: Sorting rice into compartments or transferring it from one container to another using tweezers or fingers requires close attention to visual input and hand control. These activities mirror the detailed movements needed for forming letters and words on a page.
•Following visual cues: Children can follow guided instructions to draw specific shapes, lines, or patterns in the rice, helping them practice moving their hands in response to what they see. This visual-motor integration is a fundamental part of learning to write.
Through these playful activities, sensory rice helps children develop the visual and motor coordination necessary to write legibly, control letter size and space words properly on paper.
Photo courtesy of Johnstocker

Want to support small business by purchasing their Sensory materials but don't want to wait ages for shipping while they make your order from scratch? Ain't nobody got time for that! Unlike other stores selling handmade Sensory materials we don't wait until we receive your order before we start making our products. Everything listed for sale in our store is already made and ready to be shipped to you. Yes, really, everything! Including our Sensory Rice, Playdough and Potion Play ranges. We only sell what we can get on its way to you quickly, ready to be played with ASAP. If our store says it's in stock, it's really in stock! We want our customers big and small to start playing at the earliest possible time. Maximum play, all day is how we roll. https://twolambs.com.au/collections/all

Sensory Rice is a great tool for helping children develop fine motor skills which are crucial for learning to draw and write.
•Strengthening Hand Muscles: As they scoop, pour or pick up small amounts of rice they use the small muscles in their hands and fingers. These actions help build strength and dexterity, which are essential for fine motor control.
•Pinching And Grasping: When children pick up individual grains or grab handfuls of rice, they are practicing different types of grip, like the pincer grasp (using thumb and forefinger). This grasp is import for holding a pencil.
•Hand Control And Precision: Sensory rice play requires children to carefully control their movements. They may pour rice into a small container or use their fingers to trace shapes. This improves hand control needed for writing and drawing.
•Tactile Feedback And Awareness: The varied textures provide sensory input, helping children become more aware of their hands and fingers as they manipulate the rice. This sensory feedback supports them to develop better control and precision in their movements with a pencil.
•Bilateral Coordination: Rice play may involve using both hands together to complete a task such as holding a container with one hand while scooping and pouring the rice with the other. This helps children to learn to stabilise the paper or other writing surface with one hand while drawing with the other.
•Tactile Feedback And Awareness: The texture, attractive colours and sound of the rice moving provides information that can then be integrated by the nervous system. This helps them become more aware of their hands and fingers, so they can make more purposeful movements. This sensory feedback supports better control and precision in fine motor tasks.
•Improving Focus And Attention: Sensory rice activities are often engaging and calming, helping children focus on small, detailed movements. This focus aids in improving fine motor skills by encouraging careful, intricate hand movements.
Photo courtesy of John_walker

Sensory Rice encourages creativity and imagination. It can be used in combination with other toys like our figurines, animals or kitchen utensils to create imaginative scenarios and engage your children in pretend play. With Sensory rice they can go on their very own space mission where they explore new worlds. Will they collect space rocks today or communicate with alien life? This photo was taken using our The Sky At Night Sensory Rice Blend and Space Nature Tube figurine collection. https://twolambs.com.au/collections/sensory-rice

Did you know before children can learn to write they need to develop fine motor skills and strength in the small muscles in their hands and fingers? These muscles are essential for holding a pencil and controlling movements while writing. Children can often feel frustrated or are disinterested in working on these skills traditionally using pencil and paper. Luckily there are so many ways to work on writing without actually writing! Every single product in our range at Two Lambs can help your child do just that. Every squash, squeeze, pour and scoop can help them become confident handwriters. They won't realise they're working on their handwriting. They won't care. They'll just be having fun and making memories. (Photo courtesy of Andrea Piacquadio.)
https://twolambs.com.au

All the products in our sensory rice range are made with safe, non toxic ingredients. They're coloured with water based food colouring. We spent a long time developing our range to achieve really vibrant colours. Who knew securing really good food colours and getting consistent coverage could be so hard? Many hours and lots of failed experiments later, we're really proud of the quality we've been able to achieve. We hope the care we have taken to develop our sensory rice range brings you and your little people much joy.
https://twolambs.com.au/collections/sensory-rice

Back in Stock! https://twolambs.com.au/products/chocolate-scented-playdough We sold out of of Chocolate Playdough earlier in the week Thank you so much for your support! We've been busy making more and now they're available to purchase again. Be quick and get them in time for Easter!

SOLD OUT! We’re currently making more and it’ll be in stock again very soon. Thank you for your support!

🍫🐣Our Chocolate Scented Playdough has just been released and is now available for order from our online store. https://twolambs.com.au/products/chocolate-scented-playdough It smells amazing and is made from 100% non toxic, food grade ingredients. If cared for and stored correctly you can expect it to last for at least 6 months. More information can be found on the product listing in our store.

The spoons are here! And they are beautiful. Our Rainbow Flower Spoons make Potion Play just that little bit more magical and work beautifully with our Sensory Rice range. You'll find them under Tools and Accessories in the Potion Play section on our online store. https://twolambs.com.au/products/rainbow-flower-spoon