sensory bin

Easter Egg and Bunny Sensory Bin

I like to keep a stash of coloured rice on hand for things just such as this. Since I had already dyed the rice, I was able to throw this sensory bin together really quickly.

To make this Easter sensory bin, I used blue and pink rice, egg shakers (a really great sensory tool!), glittered foam eggs, styrofoam eggs, fuzzy chicks, a bunny cookie cutter, and cookie cutters to spell out the word “HOP”.

The kids enjoyed this bin but it was Granola Girl who took the biggest liking to it. She especially seemed to like to group things by colour. She also liked to keep the blue and pink rice on their respective sides. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture after any of her sessions with the bin. I did manage to get this picture of the bin after Snuggle Puppy finished playing with it. He obviously had no issues with mixing the different colours of rice!

You may also want to check out our Christ-centered Easter sensory bin from last year. If you are looking for more sensory bin ideas or information, you may be interested in my book and by following my Sensory Bins board on Pinterest.

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

Silk Flowers Sensory Bins

By Sharla Kostelyk

These silk flowers sensory bins were made easily using silk flowers and flower petals. These are a very easy sensory bin filler. I find most of mine at the dollar store.

Spring is coming! After a winter that seemed longer (or maybe just colder) than most, I am very ready to welcome it. As part of my plan to welcome spring a bit early, I made two Spring themed sensory bins. The first one I made very simply with two colours of silk flower petals, soap flower petals (I knew that my sensory sensitive kids would NOT be fans of the smell of the regular rose scented ones so I bought softer grapefruit smelling ones), and little chicks. It was a very simple bin but had a good contrast of textures between the coarser soap petals and the silk petals and then the fuzzy chicks. With the presence of the little chicks, this bin could also double as an Easter sensory experience.

The other bin is one that I love because it is full of bright and cheerful colours! For me, Spring is all about colour. This bin was so pretty.

For this sensory bin, I used a purple silk flower lei, many different silk flowers in an assortment of colours, silk leaves, a large daisy hairclip, and really bright pompoms. The kids really enjoyed this bin. Granola Girl enjoyed grouping the flowers and pompoms according to colour while some of the other kids just wanted to dig their hands in and play in a more random way.

Silk flowers and flower petals are a very easy bin filler because they add colour, a nice soft texture and they hold up well to play and even do well if they get wet. You can easily float them in water.

If you have any sensory bins that you silk flowers or flower petals, please link them up so that others can find more ideas for incorporating this easy sensory bin filler into their sensory play as well.

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

Simple Valentines Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

This Valentines sensory bin was made at the last minute with very few items but still captured the attention and creativity of the kids! Last year for our Valentine’s Day sensory bin, I used red paper shreds as the base. I hadn’t planned anything out for this year so I used pink and purple beaded garland and shiny foil heart garland as the base. I threw in a few plastic heart shaped containers and in one of them, I put a costume jewelry ring. The container with the ring led my boys to come up to me, open the container and ask, “will you marry me?”!

We had a few friends over to make crafts and play and as always, the sensory bins were very popular with the kids. Our farm sensory bin also got played with a fair bit because I haven’t finished disassembling it.

The kids and their friends danced, ate, guessed how many conversation hearts were in the container (214), made crafts, played in the sensory bins, and played with the chocolate playdough. Happy Valentine’s Day!

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

Candy Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

Earlier this year, we were reading the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I like to come up with corresponding activities to go along with our book studies in the hopes that it will cement the learning and usually come up with a sensory bin as part of that. It seemed only natural that a Candy Sensory Bin should go with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!

I included various sizes of pompoms, little beads that can be strung together to make a necklace that looked candy-like, gold foil bon bon cups to represent the Golden Tickets, an empty Wonka Nerds box, an ice cream scoop, a Pez candy dispenser, ice cream bowls in bright colours, a Fudgesicle bubble blower which was chocolate scented, and the little rings that you can put on keys to tell them apart (which I bought for $0.99 for a pack of 4 and thought they looked like Life Savers and they have great sensory elements to them).

At one point, I bought a pack of Wonka Gobstoppers and ate them so that we could use them in the bin (the sacrifices I make for my kids!) but the empty box likely got thrown away so I bought another box and with that one, I shared them with the kids, but that empty box also somehow got thrown away so after two failed tries, I gave up on having Gobstoppers in the candy sensory tub!

It was neat to see how differently the kids approached playing with this bin. Some got in there and smelled everything, mixed things all around, made a necklace out of the beads and wore it while they played, while others were more methodical in their approach and separated things by colour or just organized the bin in the way they felt best.

I didn’t disassemble this bin because I’m planning to pull it out again for Valentine’s Day week and will add some plastic conversation hearts to it for that. Double-duty sensory bin!

If you are looking for more sensory ideas or information, you may be interested in my book and by following my Sensory Bins board on Pinterest.

Winter Sensory Tray

By Sharla Kostelyk

The other day I was in a department store and passed by a square mirror for $3. I knew that I could make all kinds of sensory trays and activities with it so I scooped it up!

For this winter themed tray, I added white feathers, silver jingle bells, a strip of white faux fur, and a blingy “W” sticker. I left the sticker on its clear backing for the tray and told Miss Optimism that she can craft with it when we are done with the tray.

This is a lot less than I usually include in a sensory bin or tray, so I’ve been surprised at how much the kids have enjoyed playing with it and at the scope of their imaginations. They have made the feathers into clouds, the faux fur into a snow hill, the jingle bells into tobogganers! They have threaded the jingle bells onto the feathers, have created patterns with the feathers, have hidden the “W” beneath layers of fluff…they have not tired of this activity yet.

I’m both excited and sad that it is time to bring out the winter themes. We got our first snow of the year on Sunday and though some has already melted and it is supposed to warm up tomorrow and melt what remains, soon, there will be a snow that stays until Spring.

If you are looking for more sensory ideas or information, you may be interested in my book and by following my Sensory Bins board on Pinterest.

Coffee Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

I don’t drink coffee and we got a Keurig for Christmas last year, so the only coffee The Husband drinks is now from there. I had a large bag of coffee beans that we bought in Ethiopia over 4 years ago (yuck) and a small bag of grounds that are probably even older. I’m not sure why I bought the beans as we have never at any point had anything in the house with which to grind them!

I kept both bags with the intention of making some type of coffee sensory bin at some point. I then heard that September 29 is National Coffee Day so that gave me great motivation to make it in time to share it before then with you in case you wanted to make one of your own!

I started with a base of coffee beans and coffee grounds and then it was actually Einstein’s idea to add the K-cups which I thought was pretty brilliant! Then we added a few packs of Coffee Mate that he had picked up at a hotel at some point (that child is always “collecting” random things!).

I wanted to add something to represent sugar but I didn’t have any sugar cubes. I ended up using two of the salt blocks that we made last week for our history class. They look just like rectangular sugar cubes!

I added two little coffee cups (well they are tea cups but they work well as scoops in this bin!) and a toy spatula.

The kids are liking the bin, particularly the smell of it! It has been a wee bit of a challenge to get them not to open up the packets that are in there though!

If you are looking for more sensory ideas or information, you may be interested in my book.

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