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sensory bin

Winter Sensory Bins

a collage of different winter themed sensory bins and the words "Winter Sensory Bins"

By Sharla Kostelyk

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It’s that time of year again. The snow is falling, temperatures are dropping, and kids are starting to go stir crazy! These winter sensory bins are a great way to bring the outdoors indoors without bringing the cold in with it.

Sensory play is an important part of development for all kids, particularly those who have sensory issues. The additional sensory input meets their needs and helps with emotional regulation and mood.

Winter Sensory Bins:

Winter Wonderland Sensory Bin from here on The Chaos and The Clutter

Winter Sensory Tray from here on The Chaos and The Clutter

Arctic Animals Sensory Bin at Teaching Mama

Snowman Sensory Bin at Every Star is Different

Snow Sensory Tub from Simple Fun for Kids

Animals Hibernating in Winter ~ Sensory Bins for Preschoolers from The Natural Homeschool

Winter Counting Sensory Table from The Imagination Tree

Arctic Sensory Bin from Adventures and Play

Frozen Oobleck Sensory Bin on Messy Little Monster

Pretend Snow Snowman Sensory Bin from Housing a Forest

Pretend Snow Sensory Bin from Mommy’s Bundle

Exploring Ice in the Sensory Table at Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

Winter Diorama Ideas: Animals that Adapt in Winter from The Natural Homeschool

Mini Polar Sensory Bin from Mom Inspired Life

Figure Skating Sensory Bin from Every Star is Different

Pretend Snow Sensory Play with Trains from Play Trains

Winter Wonderland Small World Play from Buggy and Buddy

Snow Sensory Activity with Shaving Cream from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

Snow Slope Imaginary Play over at Picklebums

Bring the snow inside with this Real Snow Sensory Bin from Messy Little Monster

Simple Snowman Sensory Bin from Living Life and Learning

Snowball Water Play Winter Activity at Fantastic Fun and Learning

Winter Preschool Treasure Hunt Bin from Brain Power Boy

Winter Sensory Bin from Paper and Glue

Penguin Sensory Bins:

Penguin Sensory Bin from here on The Chaos and The Clutter

Penguin Sensory Bin from Adventures and Play

Make a Penguin Sensory Bin at Mama Smiles

Penguin Pretend Play from Nurture Store

Penguin Ice Play for Toddlers at Messy Little Monsters

Penguin Sensory Play from Fantastic Fun and Learning

As you can probably tell from these examples, sensory bins are simple to create. You likely have most of the supplies in your home today to make a sensory bin that your child would love. If you are looking for more in-depth information on creating sensory bins including filler ideas, sensory recipes, storage, and money saving ideas, you can find those in my ebook on Sensory Bins. Sensory Bins ebook Get 175 sensory activity ideas in convenient printable lists which are ideal for using in the home, classroom or in a therapeutic setting.

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How To Make Kinetic Sand At Home

a white bin filled with kinetic sand also contains 3 small construction vehicle toys that are yellow and black in colour.

By Sharla Kostelyk

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Kinetic sand is such a neat sensory experience for kids. It is fun to play with, sparks creativity, and offers great sensory input. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but the kinetic sand in stores is expensive.

Once your kids play with the kinetic sand for a while (particularly if it’s in a classroom or day care and multiple children have their hands in it), it can get dirty. That means it needs to be thrown out. Which means you need to buy more. That’s why homemade kinetic sand is such a great option. You won’t believe how easy this recipe is to make!

Homemade Kinetic Sand #sensoryplay #sensoryplayrecipes #kineticsand

What is Kinetic Sand?

Kinetic sand is sand that has had ingredients added to it so that it becomes mouldable like clay. It continues to have the grainy properties of sand, creating an interesting texture experience.

Yet it sticks to itself, much like wet sand at the beach. When you are on the shore making sand castles or sand sculptures, you need to add water to keep the structures from becoming too dry and crumbling. This is essentially the idea behind kinetic sand.

DIY Kinetic Sand Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups sand
  • 2 1/2 cups flour
  • 3/4 cup vegetable oil

How To Make Kinetic Sand:

  1. Measure out the sand and flour and add to a large bowl.
  2. Mix the sand and flour together.
  3. Stir in the oil. Combine well.

Now you have your own homemade kinetic sand to play with!

This recipe is included in our Sensory Play Recipes eBook. It includes more than 25 easy to make recipes for awesome sensory activity options. If you’d like a sample that includes 5 recipes from the book, just pop your email into the box below.

Does Kinetic Sand Dry Out?

If the sand begins to dry out after a few weeks, you can mix in a few drops more of vegetable oil and give it a good stir.   

Homemade kinetic sand is wonderful for playing with and such an easy recipe to make. You can buy enough sand to make large quantities of your own kinetic sand for the same cost as one pack of store bought variety.

You can also purchase sand in cool colours. This allows you to make coloured kinetic sand.

I put the kinetic sand in a sensory bin and added some small construction vehicles and a scoop. This created a sensory bin that encouraged imaginative play. Even my teens enjoyed playing with this one. They especially liked packing it into small cups and creating mounds and then pushing them over with the toy steamroller.

One of my sons couldn’t seem to get enough of squishing this in his fists and then releasing it to feel it fall through his fingers.

how to make your own kinetic sand

Other Play Ideas

You could also use this play material to create a beach sensory bin with seashells, small sand toys, glass beads, and rocks.

Or you could simply dump it in a kinetic sand tray and let your child’s imagination lead the way. They can stamp in this sensory play material with cookie cutters or stamps. Kids can experiment with creating shapes. They can add small toys to create a small world. There are so many options.

For therapists, this is an interesting material to use in sand trays. The proprioceptive sensory feedback kids receive from squishing and squeezing the sand can create a calming effect. You can still have the child add toys and play out scenes.

Once you know how to make kinetic sand at home and realize how easy it is, you’ll never need to buy it again!

Click here for more easy sensory play ideas:

Snow Playdough

Milky Slime Recipe

Unique Types of Slime

The Mega List of Sensory Bottles 

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Filed Under: Sensory Tagged With: sensory bin, sensory play

Pumpkin Pie Scented Moon Dough

in a red plastic bin, light almost white cloud dough is sprinkled with fall coloured plastic leaves and small metallic leaf shaped confetti. There is also a metal scoop in the corner.

By Sharla Kostelyk

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This pumpkin pie scented moon dough is the perfect Fall sensory bin filler. Create a sensory experience that involves both the olfactory and tactile sensory systems.

To me, the smell of Fall is encapsulated in pumpkin pie spice. The scent reminds me of my grandma’s pumpkin muffins and takes me back to my childhood. Pumpkin Pie Scented Cloud Dough #olfactory #sensoryplay #clouddough

Pumpkin Pie Scented Moon Dough Recipe:

Supplies:

  • 4 cups flour
  • 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil

Directions:

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour together with the pumpkin pie spice.
  2. Pour in the vegetable oil.
  3. Stir well and then knead by hand.

Since everything in this play recipe is edible, this moon dough is taste safe. This makes it a good sensory play option to use with babies and toddlers. Of course, adult supervision should always be used.

Dump the scented moon dough in a plastic bin. If you want, you can add some Fall themed items. I added silk fall leaves, leaf confetti, and a small scoop in our bin. If using this bin with babies, skip the addition of the leaves and confetti.

This recipe is included in our Sensory Play Recipes eBook. It includes more than 25 easy to make recipes for awesome sensory activity options. You can get a sample of 5 of the recipes in the book by filling in your email below:

This dough is soft and mouldable. It forms shapes in your hand but can still revert to its powered state. The addition of the pumpkin pie spice provides the scent and also a slight hint of brown in the dough, adding to the Fall feel of the experience.Moon dough can be messy. Messy play is great for kids, but not always as fun for parents!

It works well to put an old sheet or tablecloth underneath the area you are playing in. You can also use a shower curtain purchased from the dollar store. This contains the mess. When the kids are done playing, you can gather up the corners and shake it outside.

You may be interested in some of our other sensory experiences:

Pumpkin Scented Puffy Paint

How to Colour Moon Dough

Rainbow Soap Foam

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O Holy Night Nativity Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

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One of my daughters and I were walking through the hardware store when we saw a bright yellow star shaped cookie cutter. I’m not sure why it was at the hardware store, but immediately, I thought that it would make a great nativity star in a sensory bin. It was a bit harder to find the rest of the items for this O Holy Night Nativity Sensory Bin, but it all came together once I had the star to plan it around.

O Holy Night Nativity Sensory Bin #sensoryplay #sensorybin #sensoryI’m really happy with how this turned out. I used dry black beans as the base to represent the darkness of the night when Jesus was born. I wanted to use a round container this time to make the sensory bin just as a change from the rectangular ones that I usually use.

O Holy Night Nativity Sensory Bin:

Materials needed:

  • dry black beans
  • foam wise men, shepherd and camel
  • ceramic baby Jesus and sheep (I got mine at the dollar store)
  • small angel shaped metallic cookie cutter
  • yellow star shaped cookie cutter
  • container

To put together this nativity sensory bin, fill a container with black beans and place the other items on top. You could add a Mary and Joseph of course as well. You can also add other animals or pieces of hay. If you already have a children’s nativity set or manger at home, you could add that into the bin instead of purchasing new items.

The nice thing about using black beans as a base is that you can easily stand up the foam pieces and cookie cutters within the bin. This allows kids to move things around within the sensory bin and set up the scene the way they want to.

This O Holy Night Nativity Sensory Bin is an effective way to reinforce the Christmas story with your kids. It pairs well with many children’s books that tell of Jesus’ birth.

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

Check out some of our other Christ-Centered Christmas Activities:

Nativity Chalk Silhouette

Paper Plate Manger Craft

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Christmas Gifts Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

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‘Tis the season of giving and when I saw that package of Christmas bows waiting to be put on packages, I knew they were destined for another purpose in this house! Pretty much any item that comes through the door into our home becomes used for sensory play in one way or another. Using those decorative bows and some other sparkly festive items, I put together this Christmas Gifts Sensory Bin for the kids.

Christmas Gifts Sensory Bin #Christmas #sensorybin #sensoryplay #ChristmassensoryA few years ago, when I put together our Winter Wonderland Sensory Bin, I used a foil tray instead of a plastic bin. I like to change up the containers to keep it interesting and also to provide additional sensory input. The foil tray has ridges that provide that extra sensory feedback and it’s shiny so it provides a different visual component than a matte plastic container would.

When I saw how shiny the bows were, I decided that the foil tray would be the perfect container for this sensory bin. I looked around the house and in our sensory drawers and found some other items to complete this sensory play experience.

Christmas Gifts Sensory Bin:

Materials needed:

  • foil tray
  • Christmas gift bows
  • small decorative Christmas gifts (I found mine at the Dollar Store)
  • green shiny pompoms
  • mini Christmas ornaments

Place all the items into the foil tray. You can use a plastic bin if you don’t have a foil tray. You could also add ribbon curls or strips of holiday wrapping paper. The beauty of this sensory bin is that it uses items that you may already have. You could in fact create it after Christmas by reusing your gift wrap, bows and ribbons.

For dozens of other sensory bin ideas, check out all of our past Sensory Bins.

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book all about it. The Ultimate Guide to Sensory Bins

Join our free 5 part email series Sensory Solutions and Activities and get our Sensory System Behaviours Easy Reference Cards.

Christmas Ornament Sensory Bag

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Take Flight with a Sky Sensory Bin

This Sky sensory bin is perfect for flight units or for kids who want to explore and use their imaginations.

By Sharla Kostelyk

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Last year, we did a flight unit in our homeschool and I always like to add sensory elements to everything we study. It allows the kids to explore and use their imaginations and helps their retention. Recently, we created three sky sensory activities that would have complemented that unit nicely including this sky sensory bin. They would also work well with a weather unit.

This Sky sensory bin is perfect for flight units or for kids who want to explore and use their imaginations.For this sky sensory bin, we used a base of dry pasta that we dyed blue. If you’ve never dyed pasta before, you can read about how to do it using either rubbing alcohol or vinegar. (click those words and it will take you to simple tutorials for each method)

For the actual bin for this, I used a clear food storage container that was fairly deep. After filling it with the blue pasta shells, we added some of the items from the In the Sky Toob and used the remaining items from the tube to add to our Sky Sensory Bag and Sky Sensory Bottle.

The kids cut cloud shapes out of white foam and added them into the bin. We also added cotton balls to represent fluffy clouds. I like how colourful the items are. They make this such a cheerful looking sensory bin.

sky-sensory-binThe hot air balloon from the In the Sky Toob was a particularly popular element and there were several imaginative play scenarios that resulted from it.

sky-sensory-bin-squareFor dozens of other sensory bin ideas, check out all of our past Sensory Bins.

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book all about it. The Ultimate Guide to Sensory Bins

Join our free 5 part email series Sensory Solutions and Activities and get our Sensory System Behaviours Easy Reference Cards.

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