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Honeycomb Sensory Activity

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Ready to celebrate the bees and spring? Our fun and engaging Honeycomb Sensory Activity is a great way to start exploring the world of bees while also providing unique sensory feedback to help your child thrive. Interesting supplies. Fun Activities. A unique smell. Taste-worthy ingredients. When playtime comes, what more could any child want? 

The top half of the image shows the hexagons filled with honeycomb and bees. The bottom half of the image shows the hexagons before they are filled, with a child's hands holding a scoop. In the center, text reads "Honeycomb Sensory Activity."

If you aren’t sure why your child needs sensory play, read The Importance of Sensory Play for Children. It highlights all of the various developmental milestones directly impacted by sensory experience. It’s huge.

From fine motor skills to neural pathways to emotional regulation, sensory play builds up a child in all of the right ways. And it’s not a huge lift for the parent either. In fact, your child might get so engrossed in playtime you have a moment or two to breathe or a chance to fix a home-cooked meal (or ten) while they play at the kitchen counter.

You might have to put up with a little bit of mess every once in a while, but that’s a small price to pay. This type of play is a win for everyone, and we have so many ideas you will never run out. 

How to Make A Honeycomb Sensory Activity

Supplies Needed

  • Honeycomb Cereal
  • Empty Toilet Paper Rolls
  • Yellow Construction Paper
  • Small Toy Bees
  • Scoop or spoon

A collage of four equal squares shows 1) an image with the supplies: honeycomb cereal, toilet paper tubes, scissors, bees and construction paper, 2) an image of cut toilet paper tubes being flattened and folded, 3) an image of hexagons made from toilet paper tubes, and 4) an image of setting up the hexagons with the other supplies for sensory play.

Step-By-Step Instructions

  1. Flatten the toilet paper roll and cut it into sections. You need at least 7.
  2. Shape each section into hexagons.
  3. Place the hexagons on the paper in a honeycomb shape.
  4. Let kids scoop the honeycomb cereal into the toilet paper roll honeycomb.
  5. Let them add bees to the honeycomb if they want to.
  6. Encourage kids to talk about the cereal’s feel, smell, and taste.

Tips to Assemble your Honeycomb Sensory Play Activity

  • Use edible bees instead of toy bees for a fun treat. This is great for little ones who put everything in their mouth. We love this adorable option. This makes it a mostly taste-safe play experience as long as you can keep the cardboard out of their mouths.
  • To easily shape the hexagons, take a flattened section. Move to a spot â…“ of the way across. The remaining section should be twice as big. Pinch each side there to form a rectangle. Then pinch the sides once more halfway across the long side of the rectangle.
  • To form the big honeycomb, place one hexagon on the paper. Then, add hexagons so they touch each side of the first one all the way around. You should have a total of seven once you’re done.

A small child's hands hover over a scoop of honeycomb cereal and hexagons are placed on yellow construction paper where honeycomb cereal has started to be scooped into the hexagons. A plate of honeycomb cereal sits nearby.

Make Sensory Play Even More Valuable with These Tips

Provide tongs for little hands and encourage your child to pinch the tongs to move the honeycomb. This works a different set of hand muscles necessary for later skills like scissors and pencil grip. You can also encourage your child to pick up the honeycomb between thumb and forefinger to practice pincer grip. 

Give your child a scoop or spoon so that he or she can work on hand-eye coordination and muscle coordination moving scoops of honeycomb into the hexagon shapes. 

If your child has experience with scissors, you can have them help with the cutting and folding of the toilet paper tubes to make hexagons. Just remember to demonstrate (don’t just describe), go slowly, and allow imperfection. This will add one more layer of working on fine motor skills, following directions, and hand-eye coordination. 

Ways to Extend This Sensory Play Activity

Practice counting. Have your child figure out how many pieces of cereal or how many bees will fit in each hexagon. You can also practice subtraction, addition, and if you write a number in each hexagon, one-to-one correspondence and number recognition.

Talk about shapes. Show your child images or objects shaped like hexagons and talk about the number of sides, etc.

Talk about beehives and honeycomb. Look at close-up images of beehives and bees found on the internet and compare the bees honeycomb to the one you made and the cereal.

Make our Bee Life Cycle Sensory Bin and learn about the life cycle of bees.

Practice verbal skills. Ask your child to describe the cereal and other supplies — what does it look like, how does it feel, what is the taste and smell, etc.  

Read books about bees and talk about how bees eat, how honey is made and what the bees do for our world. 

Get into the science. Do this bee pollination experiment, a fun honeycomb experiment, or watch a scientific video about bees together. 

Make bee crafts or bee artwork and display it. 

Contact a local beekeeper or ask your county extension office if they have any kind of bee education programs where you can taste honey, taste honeycomb, and learn about bees from a master.

Hexagons are placed on yellow construction paper and filled with honeycomb cereal. Bees have been placed in most of the hexagons. This is the honeycomb sensory activity.

Books to Read about Bees

Harvest Sensory Bottle

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Do you have toddlers to teens at home and find yourself needing a handy way to calm someone down, keep a little someone occupied in a quiet setting, or fight boredom on a long trip? You are not alone! Our Harvest Sensory Bottle is the perfect tool to have on hand this Fall when the need for distraction arises. Your children will be enthralled. 

A plastic bottle filled with various items including mixed dry beans and sunflowers to represent the harvest or fall.

If you haven’t read about sensory strewing before, be sure to check out that article to learn how valuable it is to just leave things like sensory bottles laying around, waiting to be discovered. Implementing this concept in your home can be life changing! That’s why I do what I do.

How to Make a Harvest Sensory Bottle

Supplies

  • Sticks. Gather these from outside.
  • Acorns. Gather these from outside as well. 
  • Resin Pumpkins and Leaves. Found in the Halloween section at Dollar Tree or other dollar store
  • Sunflowers. Found in the fall section
  • Mini Fall Florals. Look for the tan spiky pieces.
  • Multi-Colored Beans. 
  • Plastic Bottle. I get mine from Amazon.

Supplies for Harvest Sensory Bottle: flowers, beans, bottle, stems.

Steps to Make Sensory Bottles

  1. Wash the jar with hot soapy water and dry it.
  2. Layer the beans with the other supplies on the list. 
  3. Depending on the child, you may want to super glue the lid in place. On the other hand you might want to re-use the bottle so it is up to you.

Large image of the harvest sensory bottle with smaller close-ups of different sections of the jar.

Tips to Make Your Harvest Sensory Bottle the Best It Can Be

Do not overfill the bottle. Ideally you want the items in the sensory jar or sensory bottle to be able to move around, make noise, disappear and reappear, etc.

Even young children can enjoy sensory bottles with small objects as long as the bottles are glued shut and the activity is supervised. But the cool thing is, big kids and adults enjoy them as well! 

Can’t find everything on our list? Other small items found at the Dollar store while you are there can be equally delightful. Small erasers, beads, flowers, or toys that fit with the harvest theme can be substituted! 

Clean it off first. As you gather sticks, acorns, or other small items from the outdoors, be sure to tap the sticks on the ground to shake off any loose bark or dirt that might make a mess in the bottle and rinse any dirt off of the acorns. Give everything time to dry before you make the bottle so you don’t invite moisture to the party either.

You will probably have enough supplies to make two bottles. Sharing the expense with another mom is a great idea!

How to Use a Sensory Bottle

This calming activity can quiet an over stimulated child, help someone regain focus and concentration, end tantrums or boredom, and inspire hours of quiet exploration. Here are just some of the ways one of these bottles can provide a valuable experience for your child.

Visual Perception Skill Building.

This refers to the ability to make visual connections between to options and develop an understanding of depth, spatial relationships, and positional concepts like above, below, under, and behind. 

Problem Solving

“I’m sure I just found a purple bean. I want to find it again. Let me see how to make that reappear.” These are the kinds of thoughts that come out of sensory bottle play. 

Auditory Sensory Feedback

The sound of the beans in the bottle can have a calming or stabilizing effect. It also helps exercise those auditory discrimination skills. 

Large Muscle Movement

The smaller the child, the more of a large muscle workout a sensory bottle will be, and as they shake it, move it, turn it and bang it around they will be getting all kinds of kinesthetic feedback to the central nervous system. Just remember you cannot allow free play with a sensory bottle unless you are present to supervise. Even a glued on lid can come undone. Ask me how I know! 

Harvest Sensory Bottle Expansion Activities

  • Read books about Fall. Some suggestions include Leaf Man by Louis Ehlert and Fall Mixed Up.
  • Rake and jump in leaves together. 
  • Go on a hike in the woods to look for items in the sensory bottle. 
  • Find and draw or name each different kind of item in the sensory bottle. 
  • Visit a field of sunflowers.
  • Talk about the four seasons.

A very close-up picture of the harvest sensory bottle with one of the sunflowers at the front.

More Fantastic Sensory Bottles to Make

We love this Thanksgiving Sensory Bottle and its the perfect time of year to buy the supplies for both this and the Harvest one at the same time. For some extra fun, make this I Spy Birds Sensory Bottle. The I Spy bottles are perfect for taking on long car rides or events that will get tedious for little ones. We have so many different sensory bottle ideas, but one more I want to specifically call out that I think you will love is the Van Gogh Inspired Starry Night Sensory bottle.  

The Day the Crayons Quit Sensory Bin

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Building a sensory bin around a book is a genius idea. Reading aloud is so incredibly valuable for our children. Not only will The Day the Crayons Quit Sensory Bin encourage you and your children to read aloud together, it will also provide positive sensory input. Plus, your kids will be working on fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, gross motor skills, observation, and color theory. 

The top half of the image shows a close up of the sensory bin with magnifying glass front and center and the book staged behind. The bottom half of the image shows a different view of the sensory bin with the dice and tongs featured. In the middle, text states "The Day the Crayons Quit Sensory Bin".Bright and engaging colors, a variety of interesting textures, and a story to tell, retell, and imagine will make this a sensory bin your kids won’t want to leave. The value of sensory input for children cannot be overstated. The same can be said for literacy. This activity encourages both.

About The Day the Crayons Quit

A delightful book, The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Marichelle Daywalt, tells the story of a time when all the crayons were dissatisfied with their lot in life. Each of the crayons leaves behind a letter to explain their plight and a dissappointed young man must convince them to take up their posts again so that he can color. The book covers themes like communication, feelings, empathy, and respect.

Why Connect a Sensory Bin to a Picture Book

The beauty of reading picture books to children is that the pictures help  to bring stories to life for children and help them engage with the story even as they work separately on the skill of picturing a story as they read. Reading out loud to your children has immense value because they can hear and understand far more than they can read on their own. So by reading, you are providing an enriched literary experience they will come to crave for themselves. 

When you add a sensory bin to the picture book experience, you are extending the magic. You keep the story alive in their minds and give them one more way to explore the concepts introduced by the book. As they play, they replay or continue the story in their heads or outloud with each other. This gives kids practice using vocabulary, communicating with each other, using imagination, and exploring the world.

The connection between the sensory bin and the book strengthens neural pathways in the brain and improves comprehension through play. It’s a new way to process and work through new information. 

How to Make a “The Day the Crayons Quit” Sensory Bin

Supplies Needed 

Step-By-Step Instructions

  1. Fill the sensory bin with rainbow rice.
  2. Add rainbow pom poms and number mini erasers.
  3. Add small bowl, tongs, magnifying glass, and dice.
  4. Set the book next to the bin.

Suggested Activities to Go with The Day the Crayons Quit Sensory Bin

  • Read the book.
  • Roll the dice and find a matching number mini eraser with the magnifying glass.
  • Roll the dice and use the tongs to place the correct number of pom poms in the bowl.
  • Use the magnifying glass to take a closer look at the book.
  • Locate a color in the book and find the matching colored pom poms.

How to Play with A Sensory Bin

  • Sort and organize. This is such a valuable activity for kids. You can sort items in the bin by color, type, or size. 
  • Encourage your children to enjoy free play in the bin and see how they approach the experience. Let them run their hands through the rice, scoop and pour it, and play for as long as they like.
  • Compare and contrast. Talk about how the textures, colors, shapes, and sizes of each object compares to the others. Use descriptive words like smooth, soft, fluffy, or bright to describe the objects and compare them. 
  • Gather and distribute. Move all of the pom poms to the bowl. Then dump the pom poms and move all the number erasers to the bowl. Use tongs, tweezers, or thumb and index fingers to work on fine motor skills a variety of different ways.

Sensory Bin Variations

You do not have to use rainbow rice. You could use rainbow pasta, rainbow beans, or a different sensory bin filler in primary colors. 

Be creative! You can find mini crayon erasers and all kinds of things to use in your sensory bin if you have the room in your budget, but you can also pick things up at yard sales, at thrift shops, and from around your home. For this sensory bin focus on primary colors or rainbow colors to go with the theme of the book.

Add funnels, scoops, tweezers, measuring cups, spoons, and other tools to help your child experience the different materials in the bin. 

Learning Extension Activities for The Day the Crayons Quit

Create Your Own Follow-Up Story: The Day the Crayons Were Happy

The Day the Crayons Quit Coloring Page

Make Crayon Ornaments

How to Melt Crayons and Make New Ones

Beetlejuice Sensory Bin

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With the release of another Beetlejuice movie, there’s a whole new generation who will be introduced to the memorable characters. This Beetlejuice sensory bin would be fun to pair with a movie night or for Halloween. It’s spooky but not overly scary because it carries the quirky vibe from the movie.bright green tray with dry black beans, purple pompoms, plastic eyeballs, green ribbon curls, a green pincher, and striped play pumpkinsThis sensory experience inspired by the unique world of Beetlejuice would also be a great addition to your classroom or party. It’s made with simple items that can often be purchased at a dollar store such as the Dollar Tree.

If you’re looking for similar ideas, check out our Eyeball Sensory Bin, Googly Eye Monster Slime, and Halloween Sensory Game. Or put them all together to create a themed sensory experience. 

bright green tray with dry black beans, purple pompoms, plastic eyeballs, green ribbon curls, and striped play pumpkin

Beetlejuice Sensory Bin

Materials Needed:

  • Black Beans 
  • Ping Pong Halloween Eye balls 
  • Black and white pumpkins
  • Orange and black striped pumpkins 
  • Green curly ribbon bow 
  • Purple foam balls

dry black beans, green bow and ribbon curls, small striped pumpkins, and a bag of plastic eyeballs on a white background

Additional Ideas for your sensory bin:

Add Shovels, Scoops, and Tongs. These tools encourage fine motor skill development as kids dig, scoop, and sift through the bin. They can bury objects and dig them up using their tools.

Incorporate Characters: Position your Beetlejuice and Lydia figurines within the scene to give kids an opportunity to act out scenarios. Perhaps Lydia is searching for Beetlejuice, or the sandworm is chasing them both!

Set up scenes. Create a small “graveyard” area with miniature tombstones or small creepy trees. Position your Lydia and Beetlejuice figurines within a scene or set the sandworm up so that it is chasing them. 

Incorporate other senses. Play spooky music for auditory stimulation. Include citrus scents with candles or essential oils to engage the olfactory sensory system. 

bright green tray with dry black beans, purple pompoms, plastic eyeballs, green ribbon curls, a green pincher, and striped play pumpkin

Other Beetlejuice themed play ideas:

Benefits of Sensory Play

Sensory bins are a great way to stimulate your child’s senses, improve fine motor skills, and encourage imaginative play.

  • Fine Motor Skills: Grasping, pinching, and scooping help to strengthen muscles in the hands and improve coordination.
  • Sensory Exploration: The various textures in this sensory tray stimulate the sense of touch and provide a calming, focused play experience.
  • Imaginative Play: The Beetlejuice theme encourages kids to use their imagination, reenacting scenes from the movie or making up their own storylines with the characters.
  • Language Development: Playing with a themed bin like this one encourages kids to engage in conversation, storytelling, and descriptive language as they talk about the different textures, characters, and elements they discover.

Sensory Play Tips

  • Supervise Young Children: If the sensory tub contains small items, make sure young children are supervised to prevent choking.
  • Store Materials for Future Play: When the bin has served its purpose, you can store the dry black beans in a sealed container to use for future sensory bins.
  • Encourage Open-Ended Play: Allow your child to explore the bin in their own way. Some might enjoy scooping and sorting, while others may create elaborate stories with the items.

bright green tray with dry black beans, purple pompoms, plastic eyeballs, green ribbon curls, a green pincher, and striped play pumpkin

I hope you and your child or students enjoy this Beetlejuice sensory experience. Just remember, you only need to say his name three times!

Jungle Sensory Bin with Printable Feelings Cards

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Sensory bins are a fun way to get your kids engaged in imaginative play. And while they’re perfect for encouraging your child to play independently, you can also use these learning tools to help reinforce important concepts, like emotions. With this fun jungle sensory bin, your preschooler can have fun playing with cute jungle animals while also practicing emotional identification.hands hold up card with animals on them above a bin of dry split peasThis activity is great for preschools, Kindergarten classrooms, or home. You can easily adapt the questions you ask for older and younger kids. Learning opportunities:

  • early reading
  • matching
  • jungle animals
  • emotions
  • sensory play

How to Make a Jungle Sensory Bin

Materials Needed:

  • Large bin or dish
  • Split peas or other green filler (see suggestions below)
  • Toy jungle animals
  • Printable jungle animal feelings cards (you can download those here)
  • Scissors
  • Laminator (optional)

Instructions:

  1. Fill the bin with your filler material.
  2. Add the jungle animal toys.
  3. Print out the jungle animal feelings cards and cut them out. Laminate for durability, if desired.
  4. Place the cards inside the bin with the toys.

process of cutting out jungle animal cards and putting them in a sensory bin

How Do You Play with this Feelings in the Jungle Sensory Bin?

After you put your jungle themed bin together with the filler, toys, and printable cards, it’s time for your kids to have some fun! Let your child explore the items in the bin independently first. Then, you can encourage them to identify the different feelings they see on the animal cards.

These simple prompts are a great way to get your kids thinking about the jungle themed animals inside their sensory bin:

  • Point at the sad lion.
  • Show me the angry zebra.
  • Find the happy giraffe.
  • Which animal is angry?
  • How is the zebra feeling?
  • Can you find the sad giraffe?
  • Why do you think the lion is crying?
  • Is the zebra excited?

matching two cards of a cartoon sad giraffe

Since this printable activity features a variety of feelings and emotions on each set of cards, your kid can have tons of fun playing with their favorite jungle animals and learning about feelings at the same time. The cards feature three different popular jungle animals: giraffes, lions, and zebras. And each animal displays 10 different emotions:

  • Happy
  • Sad
  • Angry
  • Disgusted
  • Shy
  • Confused
  • Scared
  • Shocked
  • Crying
  • Excited

cartoon jungle animals such as a lion and zebra

Jungle Sensory Bin Variations

  • Use different filler materials, like Easter grass, Spanish moss, small rocks, sand, water beads, or colored rice
  • Add other jungle themed toys, like small trees, sticks, flowers, or leaves
  • Provide fine motor toys, like tweezers or scoops, to add to the jungle fun
  • Use the cards outside of the box by helping your child match the different animal’s emotions

boy's hand plays with a toy animal in a bin of dry green lentils

Activities to Expand Your Jungle Sensory Bin Lesson

  • Read books about jungle animals or emotions
  • Identify your own emotions as they occur throughout the day
  • Discuss how different situations make you or your child feel as they’re happening
  • Draw or paint pictures of different jungle animals or emotions

cards of jungle animals in a bin of green split peas

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You may also be interested in:

Pretend Cotton Candy for Sensory Play

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Pretend play meets sensory play with this DIY play cotton candy. It’s easy to make, so, so soft, and offers hours of fun. You only need two items to make this!

My girls discovered this a few years ago. Once they stumbled upon how to make it, they made it in multiple colours and it was perfect for all kinds of play opportunities.

fluffy yarn in pastel colours on a black backgroundHow to make fake cotton candy for sensory play:

Materials needed:

Instructions:

  1. Comb out the yarn with the dog brush until it becomes fluffy and very soft.
  2. Play!

Yes, it’s really that simple.

Making it themselves is part of the fun, so be sure to allow your child the chance to comb the yarn themselves. Adult supervision is recommended for this and all other sensory play. The wire bristles are sharp so use your best judgment when it comes to your child’s age and skill level.

This fake cotton candy looks like the real thing. It is so soft. I wish you could reach through the screen and give it a feel. It has a silky feeling that kids love.

Cotton candy is sometimes also called fairy floss.

It’s perfect for using in sensory bins or pretend play. You could also include it in a play kitchen.This sensory cotton candy would be so cute in a carnival or circus themed sensory bin!

It would also make a unique party favour or cute decoration for a circus or carnival themed birthday or party. 

fluffy yarn in pastel colours

Pretend Cotton Candy Variations:

  • Use different colour combinations.
  • Wind some of the “fairy floss” around a paper straw to give it the look of cotton candy on a stick.
  • Place a ball of the cotton candy in a paper cone.
  • Make a large amount and attach it to clothing and a hat to create a cotton candy costume. 

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Check out some of our other sensory play ideas: