sensory bin

Every year, The Husband travels to Moab, Utah to go mountain biking. The kids are always full of questions about what it’s like there and I had planned to make them a special desert themed sensory bin while he was gone this past time but didn’t get it made until just last week. It may not have been in time for his trip, but it was in time for our official homeschool start and as always, the Sensory Bin was a very popular station!

This was a very simple bin to create. For the base, I used sand. I added a Desert Toob which had in it the little tourist man, many different animals that can be found in the desert, and a cactus. I also added some stretchy snakes, a piece of cork in the form of a cork coaster and a large squishy lizard. I had also bought a large squishy orange snake for the purposes of this bin but it had mysteriously gone missing from my sensory bin storage before I made the bin. My curious kids must have happened upon it at some points and taken it somewhere to play with!

The kids liked all of the items in the bin but the squishy lizard and the stretchy snakes were among the favourites. They used the cork coaster as all kinds of things, they scooped with it, pushed sand with it, set things on it, made it a character in their story, and used it to cover animals from the sun. I had bought a pack of them at the dollar store for sensory bin purposes and it worked really well for this bin.

You can find many more sensory ideas in the Sensory Bins book.

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

With all of the sensory bins and activities we have done over the years, we had yet to use water beads. I had a misconception that they were sticky and gross, so I had been avoiding them! After this experience, I can say that we will be using them on a regular basis from now on.

Please note that due to the potential for sea glass to be sharp and the potential choking hazards of the rest of the items, this tray is designed more for older children than for toddlers. Even with older kids, this is a tray that should be used with adult supervision.

To create this water beads sensory tray, I used a glass 9×13 inch cake pan. I lay sea glass, glass beads, and water beads into the bottom of the pan. For the water beads, I used two shades of blue aa well as clear beads. I then added water.

The kids loved watching the water beads grow from those tiny little dots to marble sized balls. They also loved how the clear water beads were invisible underwater. This fascinated them! They would scoop their hand into the water and ask someone else to guess how many water beads they had in their hand. Since you could only see the blue ones, the other person would guess a small number and then they would delight in pulling their hand up out of the water to reveal a large amount of beads. I was even amazed at how invisible the clear ones were underwater!

The textures between the gel feeling of the water beads to the sharp rough edges of the sea glass to the smoothness of the glass beads to the moisture of the water gave this tray a lot of variety. This sensory activity held the attention of my kids for a long time and they used it for weeks. We probably would have kept it for longer except that it was beginning to feel a bit slimy! The kids have already asked me to make this one again.

Another caution I will give as well for the water beads is that when they escape the tray, they feel pretty yucky to step on in bare feet!

You can find many more sensory ideas in the Sensory Bins book.

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

This Monsters Sensory Bin has got to be one of my all time favourites. The little sponge monsters with the googly eyes are pretty darn adorable!

Last week, I made a Monsters themed sensory bin. This was such a fun bin to create and for the kids to play with.

As the main base, I used fuzzy, glittery pompoms. I added a BumbleBall Jr. (when you pull the string, it bounces about), a wooden monster, lots of squishy sensory balls and creatures, colourful links, googly eyes, and kitchen sponges that the kids made into monsters.

To make our little monsters, all we did was glue googly eyes onto kitchen sponges. They were fun to make and were a great addition to the monster sensory bin.

My kids really enjoyed this sensory bin. Their favourites were the large sensory ball that contained a light up ball inside that jiggled around and the BumbleBall. They also enjoyed using the colourful links as a necklace while they played.

This monster sensory bin is especially fun for kids who love the Monsters movie. You can add in some of their favourite characters from the film.

There are a variety of textures includes because of the squishy sponges, the hard plastic on the links and the Bumbleball. There are also lots of other textures to explore with the wood, the fuzzy bits on the pompoms and on some of the sensory balls.

Be sure to use caution if making this sensory bin for little ones. The googly eyes can come off the sponges, especially if they chew on them and that could pose a choking hazard. As with all sensory play, adult supervision is recommended.

If you are looking for more sensory bin 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 a free sample of our Sensory Play Recipes eBook.