The Chaos and the Clutter

sensory bags

Ocean Sensory Bag

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When you can’t go to the ocean, bring it to you! That’s the sentiment behind this ocean sensory bag. It brings the feeling of the sea right into your home. thumbs squish a bag with blue gel with a toy shark inside. Text reads "Ocean Sensory Bag"

Ocean Sensory Bag:

Supplies needed:

Directions:

  1. Fill a small or medium sized resealable plastic bag less than halfway with hand sanitizer or hair gel. 
  2. Add some blue food gel. If you don’t have any, you can substitute drops of food colouring.
  3. Sprinkle in some blue glitter.
  4. Add the mini figures from the ocean pack.
  5. Seal.
  6. Squish to combine and especially to mix the colour in. 
  7. Open the bag again to remove any excess air and seal again.
  8. If you want, you can fold duct tape over all four edges of the bag to secure. 
  9. Hand the bag to your child to play with.

Whether or not you secure the bag with duct tape, adult supervision should be used as this contains small parts that could present a choking hazard.

This ocean sensory bag pairs well with an ocean unit study. It’s a nice hands-on activity for kids who are interested in learning about sea life creatures. They can explore and discover through finding each of the aquatic animals.

If you want to expand this activity, you can write down the names of each of the items in the bag and have your child find each one and call out its name. They will delight in discovering the sea turtle, starfish, stingray, dolphin, shark, and fish.

Children get tactile, visual, and proprioceptive sensory input while playing with their sensory bag. 

Looking for more easy sensory play recipes to cultivate fun? Join us for a free five day email series on Sensory Activities and Solutions and get a free of our Sensory Play Recipes eBook.

Try out some of these other ocean themed sensory activities:

Seaside Sensory Bin

Squishy Shark Sensory Bag

Ocean Sensory Bottle

Sprinkles Sensory Bag

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I find that it’s often the easiest activity ideas that are the best. This fits that criteria. By making a Sprinkles Sensory Bag for your child or student, you can create an easy fine motor and sensory activity that also serves as a boredom buster. clear bag with blue edges filled with colourful sprinkles. Text reads "Sprinkles Sensory Bag"

Sprinkles Sensory Bag:

Supplies needed:

*While you can use a sandwich bag, I find that the freezer bags in size medium are thicker and less likely to tear so that’s what I always use for our sensory bags. 

Directions:

  1. Reinforce the sides and bottom of a zipper seal bag by folding duct tape over them.
  2. Pour in some sprinkles.
  3. Remove the excess air and seal the bag.
  4. Fold another strip of the duct tape over the top.
  5. Give the bag to your child.

Your child can trace letters, numbers, or shapes in the sprinkles with their finger. This will help reinforce learning and also give them fine motor practise.

If you want, you can write a letter, number, or shape on a piece of paper and lay the bag on top of the paper so that they can use that as their guide. 

As far as sensory benefits go, this activity provides tactile, visual, and proprioceptive sensory feedback. If kids shake the bag, there is also a small amount of auditory sensory input as well. One of the things that’s nice about this is that it is safe for preschoolers and even toddlers because even if they are able to get the bag open, the sprinkles are edible. Of course, adult supervision should be used with all kids’ activities. 

You may also be interested in these preschool fine motor activities:

Ball and Bands Fine Motor Activity

Rainbow Playdough Fine Motor Activity

Transportation Alphabet Playdough Mats

Snowflake Sensory Bag

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I used some of the leftover materials from our Snowflake Sensory Bin to create this bag. It’s easy to create this simple snowflake sensory bag for kids to play with or as part of a winter theme in the classroom.

a child's hands holding a bag with blue glitter rocks and silver snowflakes. Text reads "Snowflake Sensory Bag"

Snowflake Sensory Bag:

Supplies needed:

  • resealable plastic bag
  • light blue or light green glitter gravel*
  • snowflake confetti
  • plastic snowflakes
  • silver fabric snowflakes
  • blue gems
  • optional: duct tape for sealing (blue or snowflake pattern)

*I always buy my glitter gravel at the Dollar Store. I like using it as a sensory play material. It provides a different texture and you can purchase it in a variety of colours. And it’s super inexpensive!

Directions:

  1. Mix together all the supplies in a bowl. You can skip this step if an adult is making the bag themselves. If making it with kids, I like to mix things together in a bowl first because it allows the child more opportunity for sensory exploration as they mix with their hands or a spoon. Alternately, you can use the same items to first create a snowflake sensory bin and then transfer some of them into a bag or several bags to expand upon the play possibilities.
  2. Pour everything into the bag. Seal the bag.
  3. If there will be young children using the bag, you can fold duct tape over all the edges to seal more completely.

Sensory Opportunities:

The snowflake sensory bag offers an opportunity for kids to engage their visual and tactile sensory systems. There are many different textures that can be felt through the bag because of the sharp, hard glitter gravel, the edges and shape of the plastic snowflakes, and the soft squish of the fabric snowflakes.

Please note: Even if you seal the bag with tape, there are sharp edges inside that can cause holes in the bag and for items to fall out. Since there are small parts, this could become a choking hazard so adult supervision is required during play.Are you looking for more easy sensory play ideas like this one? Join us for a five day email series on Sensory Activities and Solutions and get a free sample of our Sensory Play Recipes eBook.

You can also check out some of our other sensory bags:

Arctic Sensory Bag

Squishy Sky Sensory Bag

Butterfly Sensory Bag

Snowballs and Jingle Bells Sensory Bag

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Looking for an easy holiday themed sensory activity for your kids? This Snowballs and Jingle Bells Sensory Bag is portable and simple to create. It uses items purchased from the Dollar Store, so it’s also inexpensive.

clear plastic bag filled with red and green rocks, gold jingle bells, and frosted balls with text "Snowballs & Jingle Bells sensory bag"Snowballs & Jingle Bells Sensory Bag:

Supplies:

Directions:

    1. Mix together red and green glitter gravel.
    2. Drop in the frosted “snow”balls and jingle bells.
    3. Stir. Add into resealable bags and seal.
    4. If you’re going to use this with smaller children, you can seal the edges by folding over holiday themed duct tape.

Tip to expand the activity:

You can also make this into a sensory bin either before putting the items into bags or after by dumping the bag contents into a bowl or plastic tub. Toss in a scoop or a few spoons and you have a Christmas sensory bin!

This snowballs and jingle bells sensory bag offers visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and auditory sensory input. Important note: As with all sensory activities, adult supervision should be used at all times even if you’ve sealed the edges shut. Note that the glitter gravel can have sharp edges and can sometimes cut through the bag.

Check out these other Christmas themed sensory bags:

Nativity Sensory Bag

Fill an Ornament Christmas Sensory Bag

Christmas Sensory Bag

 

Nativity Sensory Bag

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I have to admit that I *may* have gone a bit overboard this year when it comes to creating nativity sensory activities after discovering the most adorable little buttons. And that is how the idea for this Nativity Sensory Bag came about.

I first used the buttons in our Nativity Sensory Bottle and then in our Nativity Slime (which turned out even better than I had imagined) before they were used to create this simple sensory bag.plastic bag filled with light purple liquid, glitter, and nativity figures with text "Nativity Sensory Bag for kids"

Nativity Sensory Bag:

Supplies needed:

Nativity buttonsNativity buttonsNativity buttonsThe Good Shepherd buttonsThe Good Shepherd buttonsThe Good Shepherd buttonsUnicorn Chunky GlitterUnicorn Chunky GlitterUnicorn Chunky GlitterPLAYMOBIL NativityPLAYMOBIL NativityPLAYMOBIL NativityChristmas in the Manger bookChristmas in the Manger bookChristmas in the Manger book

Directions:

  1. Squeeze hand soap into the resealable plastic bag to a little over half full.
  2. Add the glitter. We used two colours.
  3. Set the small nativity figure buttons on top.
  4. Seal the bag shut and squish to mix everything together.
  5. If you will be using this with younger children, you may want to fold duct tape over all sides of the bag to ensure that it can’t be opened. You can use holiday duct tape to make it look more appealing.

Remember that as with all sensory activities, adult supervision and common sense should be used.

Sensory and Learning Opportunities:

This activity engages the visual, tactile, and proprioceptive sensory systems. If your child is old enough to help with creating the sensory bag, squeezing the liquid soap into the bag provides additional proprioceptive feedback.

Your child can play with their Nativity Sensory Bag while listening to the Christmas story. This will improve their focus and retention. They can also additionally engage with the story by finding the people in the bag as they have come into the narration.

Create a nativity learning center in a classroom or playroom by setting out some of these things:

If you’re looking for other holiday Sensory bags, check out: 

Fill an Ornament Christmas Sensory Bag

I Spy Christmas Sensory Bag

Butterfly Sensory Bag

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This simple butterfly sensory bag provides a calming effect for kids. The glitter makes it appealing for kids to play with. You can make it just for fun or to go along with a butterfly unit in school or homeschool.Butterfly Sensory Bag #sensorybags #sensoryplay #sensory #kidactivitiesOne of the things I like about sensory bags is how portable they are. While sensory bins provide more opportunity for a variety of textures and sensory experiences, sensory bags are smaller and can be taken anywhere. We have also made a butterfly sensory bin, but it was not of course as portable.

Butterfly Sensory Bag:

Materials needed:

  1. Fill the bag about half full with the hand sanitizer.
  2. Add a fair amount of glitter. (*see note below)
  3. Put in some butterfly confetti.
  4. Seal the bag, taking out as much air as you can.
  5. If younger kids are going to be using this sensory bag, take duct tape and fold it in half over each of the sides of the bag (4 pieces of duct tape total). You can even use a pretty butterfly tape.

*A note about the glitter: I usually say that there’s no such thing as too much glitter, but in this case, I may have put in a bit too much glitter! It made it hard to see the butterflies.

Mistakes don’t have to ruin your activity though. I turned it around. I told the kids that the goal was to try to find all the butterflies and count them.

Sensory benefits:

This butterfly sensory bag provides tactile (touch) and visual (sight) sensory input. When kids, squeeze, squish, and press the bag, it gives them proprioceptive sensory feedback.

Language and math skills:

A child can discuss how the bag feels (squishy, gooey, textures, etc.). They can talk about the colours of the butterflies and they can count the butterflies or sort them by colour.

Get 175 sensory activity ideas in convenient printable lists which are ideal for using in the home, classroom or in a therapeutic setting.

Some of our other easy to put together sensory bags:

Squishy Shark Sensory Bag Mermaid Sensory Bag Trolls Sensory Bag