sensory bin

Joy Sensory Bin

This Joy Sensory Bin is perfect for a bit of sensory play around the holidays. Even though we have been making sensory bins for a very long time now, it never ceases to amaze me how much enjoyment my kids still get out of them. I also am impressed at the different, out-of-the-box ways the kids think of playing when each bin.

I am in love with that picture because Dancing Queen’s face looks so peaceful which shows the power of sensory play with kids who have sensory needs and anxiety.

Making this sensory bin was a two part project. We made the letters for JOY by covering wooden letters with Modge Podge and sprinkling generously with silver glitter. When they were dry, I mixed Modge Podge with water and went over the sprinkles with it to seal them.

I used a blue bin and added fake snow (also called buffalo snow). I used a type that was iridescent because I liked the look of it but regular would work too.

I added white and blue pompoms, holiday shaped mini cookie cutters, white feathers, snowflake confetti in white, blue and silver, and the JOY letters.

Last year for Christmas, I made a Winter Wonderland sensory bin and while the kids loved it and we decided to use the same snow for this one because it was such a hit, I wanted to do something this year to convey a bit more about the real reason for the holidays so that is where the idea for the Joy Sensory Bin came from.

For hundreds of other sensory bin ideas, you can also follow my Sensory Bins board on Pinterest.

Follow Sharla Kostelyk’s board Sensory Bins on Pinterest.

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book.

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

Eyeball Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

This sensory bin was most popular with my older kids. In fact, I happened to have it on the counter during a zombie theme party we had for our son and the preteen and teenage guests at the party loved it! Some of those boys spent more than twenty minutes playing in it. Don’t believe anyone who tries to tell you that sensory bins are only for little ones!

Eyeball Sensory Bin...even popular with older kids. To make this eyeball sensory bin, I used purple water beads, water, googly eye stickers, bright coloured eyeball finger puppet rings, and cartoon eye glasses. I began by filling a clear plastic bin with water and the purple water beads to allow them to soak up the water. When the water had been absorbed, I added the other items.

One of the ways the kids played with this bin was to play seek-and-find with the eyeball stickers that were here and there and everywhere.

Eyeball sensory bin with purple water beads The cardboard on the cartoon glasses got wet from the water beads after a few days so we ended up having to take those out, but they were a fun element while they lasted. The kids enjoyed trying them on and laughing at each other! They also liked playing with the ring finger puppets.

This would be a good sensory bin to go along with a Monsters theme unit or for Hallowe’en.

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book.

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

Autumn Sensory Bin with Birdseed and Cinnamon

By Sharla Kostelyk

When it comes to sensory bins, I usually make a new one every week and have an easy time coming up with ideas. I have a storage cart that houses sensory supplies so in a pinch, I search through there for inspiration and it only takes me a few minutes to put together a new bin.

This summer was the busiest we have ever had (four different camps between VBS, day camp, horse camp, and mountain bike camp for five of the kids, extended family camping trip, my trip to Virginia to speak at a blogging conference, family road trip to Vancouver Island, out of town wedding in the mountains where my husband was the best man, and various day trips) and trying to get back into the swing of homeschooling this Fall has not gone as smoothly as planned.

Even something as simple as coming up with a new sensory bin can add to the general feeling of overwhelm. That’s where great friends come in! My friend Michelle gifted me this sensory bin in a bag. She was one of the moms that did the sensory bin swap with me last year and since then, we have given each other a few bins-in-a-bag.

Autumn Sensory Bin with birdseed and cinnamon Making a bin-in-a-bag couldn’t be simpler. You take your latest sensory bin and dump the contents into a resealable bag and then pass it along to someone so that their kids can enjoy a new sensory bin experience.

Michelle’s Autumn Sensory Bin contained:

birdseed
cinnamon
bright coloured feathers
fall leaves (plastic)
thin gold rope
two scoops
green pompoms
a rock
a clothespin

Granola Girl said that this bin reminder her of an I-Spy sensory bin. She enjoyed playing with the different textures and she liked the cinnamon scent (though Michelle’s daughter was not a fan of it apparently!). Between the colours and the smell, this sensory experience was a great way to welcome Fall!

Autumn Sensory Bin I’m thankful that I have friends who share their sensory bins with me when I’m in a bit of a creative funk! (Michelle did give me permission to post pictures of her lovely creation).

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book.

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

Frozen Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

There’s a Disney movie you may have heard of called Frozen. I am probably one of the few people in North America who has not seen it. I heard little snippets of it once when the kid had friends over who had brought the movie with them and they were all watching it in the other room while I made supper, but I have never sat down and watched it.

I can deduce though given the amount of references to the movie, the frequency of times I’ve been subjected to listen to “Let it Go” sung by my tone deaf daughter, and what I see in stores that this movie is a big deal, in particular to children of a certain age. In this case, given that I haven’t seen the movie, I guess you could say that I was inspired by the movie’s popularity to make a Frozen sensory bin.

For the base, I used salt, but you could also use sugar (which I don’t recommend because it may be too tempting for kids to eat it!) or epsom salt. I added reusable plastic ice cubes in purple and various shades of blue. I froze these to begin with to add another sensory element to the bin of having something cold.

I added fuzzy pompoms in blue and white, glass beads in blue and clear, a tiny Elsa figurine, and some larger Frozen characters, Olaf, Kristof, Anna, and Hans or Sven ( I don’t know which is which!).

This Frozen sensory bin is a simple one but it combines several textures and opens itself up to imaginative play with the addition of the characters.

For hundreds of other sensory bin ideas, you can also follow my Sensory Bins board on Pinterest.

Follow Sharla Kostelyk’s board Sensory Bins on Pinterest.

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book.

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

Citrus Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

I first got the idea for making this sensory bin when my neighbour was telling me that you can dry out limes. I thought it would be neat to combine some elements of real food with other items in a sensory bin. I liked the idea of keeping some of the natural scents and textures.

This took me on a bit of an experimental journey into drying citrus! I had some limes that I had taken some of the zest off for a recipe (that’s why there are stripes on the limes in the picture!) and I set them on top of the registers so that when the heat came on, they would dry out.

Drying the limes worked really well so I decided to try the same process on oranges and lemons. The larger fruit didn’t fare as well.

I wasn’t deterred. I then tried slicing oranges and lemons and limes and drying the slices in the same way I had dried the limes. I threw a few more of the whole fruit on there as well to see if I might have better luck the second time around. The larger lemons and orange didn’t work out but the citrus slices did.

For the sensory bin, I used dried lemon, orange and lime slices, the dried limes, some dried mini mandarin oranges, 2 plastic lemons, some oranges I had cut out from the cardboard box the mandarins came in, and a yellow scrubber. I also added a shaker of lemon pepper to put another element of citrus scent in the bin.

It was a very different sensory bin than what we usually make so it was a nice change and the kids thought it was neat that it used real fruit.

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book.

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

History Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

I find it easiest to create sensory bins that have some type of theme to them. If there is something that we are studying in homeschooling, a sensory bin along that theme can further reinforce what the kids are learning as well as providing an opportunity for sensory play.

Last week, the kids watched the classic musical “Annie Get Your Gun“. They adored it and are still singing “no, you can’t get a man with a gu-un”! Granola Girl was even singing it through the aisles in the grocery store the other day!

Since they were already so interested and asking lots of questions, I decided to expand their learning and teach them about the history of Annie Oakley, the woman the movie is based on and about that time in history. I happened to have a Wild West TOOB which had an Annie Oakley figurine in it (I hadn’t even noticed that when I bought it!) so I used that to create a sensory bin that would allow the kids to play and expand on the story they had watched in the movie.

History Sensory Bin For the base of the bin, I used dry white beans in one section, aquarium rocks that we had left over from a science experiment we had done the week before in another section and I finished it off with an area of moss. Then I added the Wild West TOOB figures and let the kids play.

I know that my sensory bin may not be completely historically accurate, but the point of it is to get the kids more interested in history and its characters by letting them explore. They loved that there was an Annie Oakley figure and had such fun reenacting scenes from the movie.

You can create a history sensory bin to go with any period in history (think Ancient Greece or Ancient Egypt) or that is centred on a specific historical figure (think inventors, artists, politicians or heroes).

For hundreds of other sensory bin ideas, you can also follow my Sensory Bins board on Pinterest.

Follow Sharla Kostelyk’s board Sensory Bins on Pinterest.

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book.

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