Sensory

The seasons and the holidays are the perfect time to set up an invitation to play centered around the themes of the season. Our Pumpkin Spice Latte Sensory bin combines all of our favorite colors of Fall with a valuable sensory experience children will love. It’s easy to pull together, fun to play with, and easy to dispose of when interest wanes. Plus, we have all kinds of ideas to take your play experience even further. 

The varying cereal colors represent the colors of the actual liquid in a pumpkin spice latte. Pumpkin candies reinforce the pumpkin angle. The marshmallows represent the whipped cream on top. For older children not likely to put them in their mouths, you might also add coffee beans to get that amazing smell into the mix. Once interest has waned or the ingredients are stale, wait a few days and then reintroduce similar concepts with our taste safe pumpkin pie sensory bin.

Supplies for your Pumpkin Spice Latte Sensory Bin

• Reese’s Puffs Cereal
• Mini Marshmallows
• Pumpkin Candy
• Coffee Mug or Cup
• Whisk or Spoon
• Scoop

How to Make the Pumpkin Spice Latte Sensory Bin

• A metal or plastic mug or even a styrofoam cup is preferable so that it isn’t breakable. 
• Cover the entire bottom of the bin with cereal, then push some aside to make a spot for the marshmallows. This guarantees good coverage.
• Making separate areas for each ingredient helps kids view them as individual parts of a recipe. If you follow the recipe play suggestion, this can help.

Invitation to Play

• Provide scoops, spoons, and child-safe tongs for play.
• Encourage kids to scoop the various ingredients into the cup or mug.
• Kids can practice making layers of each ingredient.
• Mix the ingredients, and encourage kids to sort them back out before scooping.
• Give kids a specific recipe, eg two scoops of cereal, one scoop of marshmallows, and six pumpkins and have them create the recipe in a child-safe coffee mug. A styrofoam cup works just fine.
• Using the tongs and scoops to move ingredients around will help your child build stronger fine motor skills, muscle strength, and coordination. Provide bowls or plastic jars in the play area and demonstrate as needed to encourage this type of play. 

Important: While this pumpkin spice latte sensory bin is taste safe and can be used with little ones who put things in their mouths, supervision is still required. Please note that the pumpkin candy may be a choking hazard.

Why I’m Always Adding New Sensory Bin Ideas

If you’ve had any kids in occupational therapy, you’ve seen first hand the value and benefits of sensory play. For a child who is texture averse, simply engaging in sensory play can increase tolerance for different types of clothing or foods over time. It’s not an instant fix, but it can help!

Besides the benefits for kids with sensory aversions, this kind of play can help with emotional regulation, body awareness, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, pretend play, and so much more.

Ask questions to get your child talking more as they play. Tell stories to inspire imagination and storytelling. Practice math skills, following instructions, and large muscle movements like stirring. You can even encourage cross body movements to improve cross dominance by asking a child to move the pumpkins from the top left corner to the bottom right corner while standing still.

As you explore sensory play with your children, you will come up with even more ideas to help your child grow and develop. 

More Pumpkin Play to Enjoy

If better emotional regulation is your goal, you will also enjoy our Pumpkin Emotions Game. Make our Puffy Paint Pumpkins for a fun art project with a sensory element. And just for grins, I’ll also mention our pumpkin slime recipe. Embrace the mess! If you are building a week around pumpkins, you might also enjoy this wooden pumpkin patch puzzle, or this book: Seed, Sprout, Pumpkin Pie.

What could be more delightful than creating a sensory bin related to the season and the holidays that your child can also eat as they explore? Our Taste Safe Pumpkin Pie Sensory Bin is one of the easiest sensory bins you’ve ever assembled, with all of the ingredients coming straight from the grocery store and the play tools are already in your kitchen. 

Everything in this fun and engaging sensory bin can be eaten. Once your child starts to tire of this one, be sure to check out our Pumpkin Spice Latte Sensory Bin for new smells, new textures, and new invitations to play. 

Supplies for the Pumpkin Pie Sensory Bin

• Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal
• Pumpkin Candy
• Mini Marshmallows
• Mini Pie Crust
• Scoop or Spoon
• Whisk

How to Make a Pumpkin Pie Sensory Bin

Combine all of the ingredients in a large, flat tub to allow easy access for your child. Add the tools of play (scoops, spoons, whisks, tongs, etc.). Set the sensory bin on a low, flat surface and invite your child to play. Demonstrate for a few minutes, or play along with your child. 

This activity engages the olfactory (smell) sense with the smell of cinnamon in the cereal, tactile (touch), and gustatory (taste) if the child decides to taste the edible parts of the sensory bin.

How to Encourage Sensory Play 

• Scooping and dumping helps your child improve fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and predictive play. Show them how once or twice. 
• Help your child practice taking oral instructions by giving them a recipe to create. For instance, have them combine a scoop of cereal with one spoonful of marshmallows and two spoonfuls of the pumpkin candies. Make up different “recipes” for them to follow.
• If the cereal is the crust, the pumpkin is the filling, and the marshmallows are the whipped cream, you can have your child practice following instructions again by having them “build” a pumpkin pie in a small bowl or pie tin one layer at a time. You can also use the mini pie crusts to do this activity. 
• Supervision is required. Be aware that the pumpkin candy may be a choking hazard for the littlest players, but in general this taste safe pumpkin pie sensory bin is ideal for those still putting everything in their mouths. 
• Have your child move ingredients into a jar or bowl one at a time using child-friendly tongs for improved pincer grip, muscle development, and fine motor skills. If necessary to keep it interesting, add racing against the clock. 

Pumpkin Pie Sensory Bin Extension Activities

Reading books can be a great way of increasing interest in a sensory bin and vice versa. The books Too Many Pumpkins or Oh My Pumpkin Pie are both excellent options to explore the topic of pumpkins. You can also build a LEGO pumpkin, Smash and plant pumpkins in your yard, or make a real pumpkin pie together. What about making pumpkin slime, or your own DIY pumpkin pie scented moon sand. Our pumpkin puffy paint makes a great art project. Learn about managing big feelings with our Pumpkin Emotions Game.

Another great idea for sensory play is to engage with your child to improve verbal communication. This kind of interaction with a parent or caregiver is invaluable! Here are some examples of questions you can ask your child to get them talking more and learning to express themselves. 

• What is your favorite part about eating a marshmallow?
• How does the marshmallow feel when you squish it with your tongue?
• Have you ever tried to smash cereal with your tongue instead of using your teeth? 
• How would you describe the contents of this play bin?
• What colors do you see in the bucket?
• What was your favorite part of this play time?
• Can you tell me three words to describe pumpkins? 
• If your pumpkin had a name, what would it be?

Try telling a story about the pumpkin pie with your child. Just start a random story and invite them to help you finish it. “Jason went down to the pumpkin patch one day and found the perfect pumpkin. He brought it home and showed his mother. Together, Jason and his Mom . . .” Just keep telling the story until it ends with a pumpkin pie on the table, engaging your child to fill in the blanks all along the way. 

Why Is Sensory Play Important?

Well-rounded exposure to sensory play helps your child feel grounded and secure. Sensory play can lead to better emotional regulation, improved mood, better sleep, and better overall behavior in public spaces. Sensory feedback is crucial for child development as children are growing from infancy and trying to understand their world around them. It stimulates critical thinking, problem solving, spacial awareness, and tactile engagement.

Sensory play can also be an effective way of desensitizing a child who is overly sensitive and does not respond in normal ways to normal sites, sounds, and textures they encounter in their every day world.

Finally, sensory play encourages other skill development too — things like fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and visual perceptual skills are all positively impacted through sensory experiences like this one.

When you realize how engrossed child becomes in sensory play and how much it benefits your child while also allowing you some space to breathe, you will want to have one at-the-ready 24/7/365. We have so many amazing sensory bin ideas, we’ve got you covered to do just that! As soon as apple picking looms on the horizon wherever you live, put together this simple Apple Pie Sensory Bin. 

Sensory bins are, indeed, the most quintessential sensory feedback play to give your child interesting and dynamic experiences with texture, touch, and grounding. Once your kiddos are all done with this one, switch it up and keep the sensory play going. 

How to Make an Apple Pie Sensory Bin

Supplies

• Oats – I bought mine from the grocery store, but you could also buy them at a bulk store or on Amazon. 
• Red and Bright Green Pom Poms – I ordered mine in a bulk package from Amazon, but your local craft store will also have them.
• Cinnamon Sticks – Find these in the spice section of your grocery store.
• Brown and Tan Felt – This is easy to find at a craft store or you can sometimes find it at a dollar store.
• Silicone Muffin Cups
• Child-Safe Tongs or Scoops

Setting Up the Sensory Bin 

1. Put the oats in the bottom first.
2. Strew the other materials out on top.

To prepare for apple pie sensory play, read a book or watch a video about making apple pie. Talk about the different parts of a pie (crust, apples, seasoning, etc.) and how a pie is made. 

Introduce the sensory bin by showing your child each of the different parts and placing it in his/her hand. Talk about the texture — how does it feel in your hand and how does it make you feel? If any of the textures are unpleasant for your child, you can remove those items and try re-introducing them later. 

Allow free play with the apple pie sensory bin in any way that works for you. It could be for fifteen minutes first thing in the morning while you get your coffee. Or it could be an hour in the evening while you make dinner. It could even be in the afternoon while younger siblings are taking a nap or just whenever it fits into your day. There is no set amount of time so you can set limits or let your child play for as long as they like. 

For extra sensory fun, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract, apple extract, or maple extract and stir it into the oats before you add the other ingredients. Alternatively, you could stir in a small amount (a few drops) or Fall scented essential oils.

More Ways to Play with Your Apple Pie Sensory Bin

Practice math skills. Adding. Subtracting. Fractions. All kinds of skills can be practiced in hands on ways using the various parts of the pie. 

Practice language skills. As your child to describe the pieces of the sensory bin. The textures, the colors, the smells, the feelings it evokes; these are all things your child can describe in words. You can also have your child talk you through how to make a pie and the parts of a pie, etc.

Practice following instructions. Make up recipes for your child to follow. Like this. “Add five green apples, four red apples, a scoop of oats, and two cinnamon sticks. Top with the crust. You made a pie!” Then try a different “recipe.”

Encourage use of the tongs, scoops, spoons, etc. to give your child practice in hand-eye coordination, muscle development, and fine motor skills. 

Sort the pom poms into the two different colors using the tongs. 

Extend the Apple Pie Sensory Bin with other activities related to an apple pie theme. Go pick apples. Make apple pie and/or apple sauce together. Read books about apples and pie. Do apple experiments and make apple art. 

Fantastic Apple and Pie Books To Read 

Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington

Amelia Plants and Apple Tree by Elena Magidson

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman

Amelia Bedelia’s First Apple Pie by Herman Parish

Apple Pie Tired by Beth Charles

Pie In the Sky by Louis Ehlert. This one is about cherry pie, but it is an excellent apple pie adjacent read. 

We have even more beautiful apple books to read on our post about Taste Safe Apple Pie Sensory Bin fun. It’s a completely different sensory bin with the same theme so you can keep going! 

Why Use Sensory Bins

Sensory bins have a way of distracting kids from big emotions, helping them calm down, self-regulate, and focus on something new. The tactile experience can help sensory averse kids become more used to a variety of textures and smells. It also provides much needed sensory play for overall vagus nerve health and sensory integration. Besides all of the sensory benefits, these bins also provide fine motor skill and large motor skill work (playing with tongs and scoops or standing over the bin both use different muscle groups), hand-eye coordination, visual perceptual skills, and more. Read more about the importance of sensory play for all children here.

I’m not going to lie, taste-safe play ideas are my favorite. Anytime I can give my little one a fun sensory experience that doubles as a snack it’s a huge win. Our beautiful Taste-Safe Apple Pie Sensory Bin is a (primarily) taste-safe activity, so it’s okay to snack a little while playing. Set this up in the morning so kids can play and enjoy breakfast simultaneously. If you have busy kiddos who wake up moving, you know how valuable combining food with play can be.

Here’s to winning mamas! We all know this is an intense, but worthy gig. Sensory bins can be an easy and fail-safe part of your routine. Have a stash tucked away to improve any rainy day whether it is stormy on the outside or the inside. Nothing improves grumpiness faster! That’s because sensory play is calming. It provides a sense of safety for the vestibular system and helps children of all ages move back to parasympathetic mode. 

How to Make a Taste Safe Apple Pie Sensory Bin

Supplies Needed

• Apple Jacks Cereal
• Caramel Apple-Flavored Candy Corn (shaped like apples and seasonally available)
• Mini Pie Crusts
• Tan Card stock
• Cinnamon Sticks
• Scoop or Spoon

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Cut the card stock into strips. This will be used for the lattice crust. 
2. Cover the bottom of the bin with Apple Jacks cereal.
3. Place the rest of the supplies on top of the cereal.

Ways to Make the Taste-Safe Apple Pie Sensory Bin Work For You

• Have kids follow a recipe to help develop cognitive skills. For example, one red apple, two green, and two scoops of Apple Jacks. 
• Kids can also stack apple candies for a fine motor skill activity. See how many they can get before they all tumble down.
• Use different tools to change things up from one day to the next and work on new skills! Start with a spoon or scoop. Then add a pair of child-friendly plastic tongs. Next, throw in a metal measuring cup. Try a few small wooden bowls. If you have a wheel-hungry kid, you can even throw in a couple of bulldozers to build that pie. I’m not even joking. 
• Weaving the lattice crust is its own skill. It requires hand-eye coordination, planning, and spatial awareness. You can practice this skill separately to help ease into it. The same technique can be used to make an apple pie craft –giving you another opportunity to practice this skill with your little one.
• Ask your child to talk about what they are touching. You might ask leading questions like: “Describe how smelling the apple candy makes you feel?” or “What can you tell me about Apple Jacks cereal?” or “What are the steps to building a (pretend) apple pie?” This encourages language development and helps strengthen neural pathway connections. 
• Have your child sort red apples from green apples and red cereal from green cereal. Place one color in one pie crust and one color in the other. 
• Encourage counting. How many apple candies fit in one pie crust? etc.

Books to Read with our Apple Pie Sensory Bins

We have two different apple pie sensory bins. This one is taste safe, and our other one is a completely different sensory experience. Perfect bins to use back-to-back when you can plan a trip to the orchard for picking apples, and read these books together at the same time. Want more book ideas? We’ve got a whole different list on our regular Apple Pie Sensory Bin so you have lots of options! 

The Apple Pie that Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson

Apples Here by Will Hubbell

The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall

Apples by Gail Gibbons

Why Sensory Bins Make Sense

I’ve been wanting to put together this sensory bin for a while now, and circumstances kept intervening. It’s not even that hard — I’ve kept the whole thing very simple and easy. I finally had some time on my hands to make this one happen. An emotions sensory bin combines one of your child’s favorite ways to play with an important developmental milestone: emotional literacy. Add some great books, a few other ways to play, and interesting conversations, and you have yourself a learning unit that your child will benefit from for years to come. 

Why Explore Emotions with Sensory Bin Play

I can think of no better way to explore emotions safely. Sensory play is calming to the central nervous system and helps your child move from parasympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) to the sympathetic nervous system. It is also allows for the safe physical expression of emotions, pressing, squeezing, and pulling to work through anger, fear, or anxiety without hurting themselves or others. This helps cortisol levels come down.

Sensory bin play is also grounding, giving your child a sense of his place in space and his connection to the physical world. Body awareness increases as children play with toys that provide sensory input, and this also helps them recognize emotions as they begin and build instead of after they spill over. Combined with the fact that the actual content of this bin teaches kids to identify, name, and talk about various emotions and you have a win-win play experience.

How to Make an Emotions Sensory Bin

Supplies Needed

• Sensory bins
• Emotion stickers
• Sensory tools
• Makeup brush 
• Oats

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Put the stickers on the bottom of your sensory bin.  
2. Cover with oats. 
3. Add in any sensory tools and the makeup brush and have your kids explore and search to find each emotion.  

Tips and Ideas for your Emotions Sensory Bin

• Other sensory tools or figurines can be added to make the bin more fun to play with or more educational. 
• Instead of oats, you can use various types of rice, quinoa, cereal, or water beads. 
• You can make an emotion card and laminate it so your kids can check off each emotion as they find it.
• Take the time to talk about each emotion to help your child learn more about emotions as well. 
• Read books related to emotions to give your child the language necessary to discuss big emotions with you or a therapist.
• Play with toys, games, and add more sensory activities to help your child form connections. We have a great list to get you started at the end of this post. 

More Ways to Play With Your Sensory Bin

• Add more tools, such as tongs, scoops, buckets, bowls, cups, funnels, construction vehicles, etc. 
• Practice counting as you find the emotions stickers. 
• Encourage verbal expression, asking your child to describe each sticker and use emotion words etc. 
• Tell a story as you uncover various emotion faces and turn each into a different character in the story. 
• Remove all of the oats little by little into a large bucket until all of the stickers are exposed, then dump the bucket back in and play some more. 

Books to Read about Emotions

• Train Your Angry Dragon by Steve Herman
• The Color Monster: A Story About Emotions by Anna Llenas
• Roaring Mad Riley by Allison Szczecinski MEd
• A Little Spot Emotional Regulation Boxed Set by Diane Alber

Toys and Games that Teach About Emotions

Don’t Go Bananas. A therapy game intended to help kids work through strong emotions.

Roll With It Coping Skills Dice Set. teaches 52 different coping skills for big emotions.

LeSong Plastic Sensory Emotions Shapes. These would be a fun add for your sensory bin! 

More Great Ideas for Working with Emotions through Sensory Play

We have so many fantastic ways to explore emotions through play! Be sure to check out Emotions and Calm Down Strategies Mega Bundle. It has a huge stash of resources to help your child in this area. 

Play the Feelings Jenga Game to get your child talking about emotions as they work through the emotions of frustration, anger, and excitement caused by the game itself.

How to Work Through Emotions with My Child will give you coping skills and strategies to use as the parent in any big emotions situation.

Make sure to check out our Big List of Books About Emotions for Kids to get even more book suggestions!

The Emotions Sensory Bag and the Emotions Sensory Bottle are both fun new activities. Each pairs perfectly with our Emotions Sensory Bin and will also work well for younger children who aren’t quite ready for sensory bin play. 

Get even more ideas from this Big List of Ideas to Teach Kids About Emotions.