It’s such a super easy game to make, and so much fun to play with! Whether you tape it to the bathtub wall or a maybe window so the light comes through, or just play with it at the table, its a sensory feast.

How to Make an Emotions Sensory Bag

Supplies Needed

• Emotion stickers
• clear plastic zipper bags
• Clear gel 
• Food dye 
• Water
• Tape

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Mix some water and food coloring. You want it to be dark so it’s hard to see the stickers. 
2. Then, mix the water with the gel. For a small clear plastic zipper bag, I used about ½ cup of gel and 1/8 cup of water. 
3. Add stickers to the inside of the clear plastic zipper bag. 
4. Then, add in the gel mixture. Close the bag and seal with tape so it doesn’t come open. 

Ideas to Take It Further

Increase the benefits of this sensory play activity by adding these additional ideas.

• You can make an emotion card and laminate it so your kids can check off each emotion as they find it. 
• Encourage talking. Ask your child to tell a story, give a definition, or write a simple poem about the emotion you are exploring or the emotions you see in the bag. The younger your child is, the simpler this can be — from naming the emotion and talking about it to more elaborate stories. 
• Additional items in the bag can add fun, sensory interest, and more gaming opportunities. Water beads, regular beads, alphabet or number beads, googly eyes, buttons, marbles or small pebbles, glitter, and confetti are all fun additions.
• Count items in the bag from sticker faces to add-ins. Fun fact: left-brained activities like counting are a great way to move yourself out of a hyper emotional state.
• Include the alphabet beads needed to spell various emotions, and try to move the beads around in the bag to spell out the words “mad”, “sad”, “happy” etc.

Kids Books to Read About Emotions

Reading about emotions is a great way to teach your kids how they are supposed to work through and respond to emotions. It’s also a great go-along for the emotions sensory bag activity. We have a big list of books about emotions you can check out. Here are a few of our other favorites to add to your list. 

• How Do You Feel by Lizzy Rockwell
• Kids, Let’s Talk About Feelings by Priscilla Zayas
• The Feelings Activity Book for Toddlers by Stacy Spensley
• The Mood Flip Book from Peter Pauper Press

Teaching Activities to Help Kids Process Big Emotions

You are going to love how much amazing content we have to help you as you and your kids explore emotions. For starters, we have monthly printables you can use to introduce and review concepts. You can find those here:

• January
• February
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October 
• November
• December

In addition, we have fantastic activities like this Emotions Sensory Bin or these fun Emotions Sensory Bottles. You’ll also find this informative and helpful article: How Can I Help My Child Control His Emotions? Don’t forget to make these Squishies too! They are so fun to play with! You’ll also love this fun Understanding Your Emotions Birthday Party.

More Great Ways to Play 

Use puppets, people toys, plastic animals, or stuffies to talk about and act out emotions and events from the day where big emotions came into play.

While everyone is calm and happy, practice different ways of responding to big emotion. Practicing before the storm is a fantastic way to help prepare your child! You can practice deep breathing, box breathing, humming a short song, sticking your hands in a cup of ice (helps stop anxiety), redirecting to a left-brained activity (counting objects for instance), or any other coping skill that works. Making these fun and interesting to practice throughout the week will make it more likely your child will be ready when coping skills are needed. 

Enjoy exercise together. Exercise is an excellent way to lower stress, process emotion out of our bodies, and calm down when needed. It’s also a great pre-learning activity since it warms up the brain and helps prepare it to receive new information. Planning exercise into your day is a win for everyone! 

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Ocean Sensory Bag:

Supplies needed:

• small or medium resealable plastic bag
• hand sanitizer or hair gel
• blue food gel
• glue glitter (optional)
• Good Luck minis ocean pack
• optional: duct tape (blue or mermaid duct tape look nice)

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

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Sprinkles Sensory Bag:

Supplies needed:

• resealable plastic bag (sandwich or medium size*)
• cake sprinkles
• colourful duct tape
• optional: paper

*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

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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

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Snowballs & Jingle Bells Sensory Bag:

Supplies:

• clear plastic resealable bags
• red glitter gravel
• green glitter gravel
• gold jingle bells
• small frosted decorative balls
• optional: holiday duct tape

Directions:

1. 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

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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.

Nativity Sensory Bag:

Supplies needed:

• medium sized resealable plastic bag
• liquid hand soap
• unicorn glitter
• mini nativity figure buttons
• mini Good Shepherd figure buttons
• optional: duct tape

Nativity buttonsThe Good Shepherd buttonsUnicorn Chunky GlitterPLAYMOBIL NativityChristmas 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:

• children’s nativity set
• this sensory bag
• crayons and colouring sheets
• Nativity Slime
• supplies to make these Nativity Cards
• Christmas story
• material to create Nativity Chalk Silhouettes
• O Holy Night Sensory Bin
• Printable Nativity Scene
• Nativity Printable Preschool Pack
• Nativity Sensory Bottle
• costumes for acting out the Christmas story

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

Fill an Ornament Christmas Sensory Bag

I Spy Christmas Sensory Bag

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Butterfly Sensory Bag:

Materials needed:

• medium sized resealable bag
• hand sanitizer
• silver glitter
• butterfly confetti in various colours
• optional: duct tape 

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 

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This cute activity can be taken with you for use as a busy bag. It can be taken in the vehicle or used in waiting rooms. If you’re going to take it out and about, it’s definitely best to seal the edges with duct tape. Using a holiday themed duct tape makes it extra cute.

Fill the Ornament Christmas Sensory Bag:

• sandwich or medium sized resealable bag (I like the medium freezer bags)
• clear hand sanitizer
• sequins and/or mini ornaments
• permanent marker
• optional: duct tape (way more fun if you use holiday themed duct tape)

1. With a permanent marker, draw an ornament shape on a resealable bag.
2. Fill the bag slightly less than halfway with hand sanitizer. Add a healthy amount of sequins or mini ornaments in holiday colours to the bag.
3. Remove as much air as you can from the bag.
4. Seal.
5. If you’re going to be using this with younger children or are worried about a potential mess, fold duct tape over the edges of the bag. You can get all kinds of fun holiday printed tapes to use that will make this look even more festive.

Duct Tape, Holiday BowsDuct Tape, Frozen Inspired OlafDuct Tape, Red Glitter

The child can now “fill” the ornament by moving the sequins with their finger on the outside of the bag.

You can make multiples of these Christmas sensory bags and use different colours of sequins or small ornaments. The kids can race to see how quickly they can fill the ornament.

Multicolor Mini OrnamentsMulticolor SequinsMulticolor Sharpies

Check out some of our other Christmas themed sensory bags:

Nativity Sensory Bag

I-Spy Christmas sensory bag 

Simple Christmas sensory bag 

Christmas ornaments sensory bag 

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Sensory bags engage the senses while containing the mess.

Of course, if you have little ones, you’ll want to seal the bag and make sure that they don’t put it in their mouths. To seal the bag, simple fold duct tape over all the edges. You can use duct tape in fall patterns or fun colours.

How to make a Fall Sensory Bag:

• foam acorn shapes
• confetti leaves
• hand sanitizer
• resealable plastic bag
• glitter (optional)
• duct tape (optional)

Place two or three of the foam shapes in a medium sized or sandwich sized resealable bag. Add in the confetti leaves. Squeeze some hand sanitizer into the bag and begin to seal. Remove as much excess air as you can and completely seal the bag. If you’re using the sensory bag with babies, toddlers, or preschoolers, I recommend sealing the bag with duct tape. Fold duct tape over all sides of the bag. You can find all kinds of fun coordinating prints and colours.

Some of the foam shapes we used had glitter on them, so I didn’t feel it necessary to add glitter to our sensory bag, but you could add in some glitter in gold or brown.

We also made a Fall Sensory Bottle and a Fall Sensory Bin to play with.

Check out some of our other sensory bags for kids:

Squishy Sky Sensory Bag

Christmas Sensory Bag

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American Girls Doll Sensory Bag

I found a few American Girls mini figures on sale at the pharmacy recently (a strange place to find materials for sensory play!) and bought them in order to make a sensory bag and sensory bottle with them. I knew my girls would be excited.

Materials needed:

• resealable plastic bag
• liquid hand soap (I used a grapefruit one because it had a slight pink tint to it which I thought went well with the theme)
• American Girls doll mini figures
• rhinestones
• optional: duct tape

To make this American Girls Sensory Bag, all you need to do is fill a plastic bag about half full of the liquid hand soap or hand sanitizer, add the rhinestones and American Girls mini figures, remove the excess air, and seal. It’s so simple.

If you want, you can ensure a better seal by using duct tape on all the sides of the sensory bag. As with any sensory activity, children should be supervised while playing. 

Join me for a free 5 part email series Sensory Solutions and Activities and get your Sensory System Behaviours Easy Reference Cards.

American Girls Doll Sensory Bottle

Unicorn Sensory Bag

Trolls Sensory Bag

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