The Legend of The Candy Cane Sensory Play

Have you read The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Wallburg?  Following a recommendation, I purchased the book this Christmas season to read to my son.  The reviews were fantastic and the book did not disappoint.  Besides Room for a Little One, it is by far my favorite Christmas book for children that I have read thus far.

A man refinishes a community store front, but the members of the community are unsure what he is going to open.  A little girl decides to find out and ends up helping him organize and open a candy store.  He also tells her the story behind the mysterious candy cane.  Eventually they share the story with everyone in their community.

This book tells the story of the birth of Christ and His sacrifice for us on the cross in a simple way that children can understand.  My son sat captivated by the story from the first time we read it.

So now that I have raved about the book, here is how we used it for sensory play.

I used our rice sensory bin and added objects discussed in the book:

• real candy canes
• plastic candy canes from a Christmas train set my parents bought for B last year
• candy cane ornaments from our tree
• a male and female lego character to represent Mr. Sonneman and Lucy
• magnetic letter J's
• sheep (I originally forgot to add them)

and a few extras for color and fun.

I read the story while B played.

Then, he ate his very first candy can before playing some more.

After playing in the sensory bin we colored a candy cane that was a free printable from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  She has some fantastic free printables.

I reiterated the truths from the book using the objects in our sensory bin.

• J is for Jesus
• The candy cane looks like a shepherd's staff.  Shepherd's were the first to find out about baby Jesus
• The red stripes remind us of Jesus suffering and His blood
• The white stripes remind us that his blood washes our sins away making us white as snow

*I was not paid to review this book, but truly believe it is a fantastic book that tells the redemption story in a way that is easy for children to understand.  While I was not paid to review this book, the link above is an Amazon affiliate link in which I benefit, but it is of no cost to you.

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