The Chaos and the Clutter

Taste Safe Apple Pie Sensory Bin

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I’m not going to lie, taste-safe play ideas are my favorite. Anytime I can give my little one a fun sensory experience that doubles as a snack it’s a huge win. Our beautiful Taste-Safe Apple Pie Sensory Bin is a (primarily) taste-safe activity, so it’s okay to snack a little while playing. Set this up in the morning so kids can play and enjoy breakfast simultaneously. If you have busy kiddos who wake up moving, you know how valuable combining food with play can be.

The top half o the image shows the sensory bin from a more distant, top down view. The bottom half of the image shows a close-up of ingredients in a spoon hovering over a blurry sensory bin. Text in the middle reads "Taste Safe Apple Pie Sensory Bin."

Here’s to winning mamas! We all know this is an intense, but worthy gig. Sensory bins can be an easy and fail-safe part of your routine. Have a stash tucked away to improve any rainy day whether it is stormy on the outside or the inside. Nothing improves grumpiness faster! That’s because sensory play is calming. It provides a sense of safety for the vestibular system and helps children of all ages move back to parasympathetic mode. 

How to Make a Taste Safe Apple Pie Sensory Bin

Supplies Needed

A four part collage shows the ingredients for the activity in the first square. The second, third and fourth squares show different views of the taste safe apple pie sensory bin.

Step-By-Step Instructions

  1. Cut the card stock into strips. This will be used for the lattice crust. 
  2. Cover the bottom of the bin with Apple Jacks cereal.
  3. Place the rest of the supplies on top of the cereal.

Ways to Make the Taste-Safe Apple Pie Sensory Bin Work For You

  • Have kids follow a recipe to help develop cognitive skills. For example, one red apple, two green, and two scoops of Apple Jacks. 
  • Kids can also stack apple candies for a fine motor skill activity. See how many they can get before they all tumble down.
  • Use different tools to change things up from one day to the next and work on new skills! Start with a spoon or scoop. Then add a pair of child-friendly plastic tongs. Next, throw in a metal measuring cup. Try a few small wooden bowls. If you have a wheel-hungry kid, you can even throw in a couple of bulldozers to build that pie. I’m not even joking. 
  • Weaving the lattice crust is its own skill. It requires hand-eye coordination, planning, and spatial awareness. You can practice this skill separately to help ease into it. The same technique can be used to make an apple pie craft –giving you another opportunity to practice this skill with your little one.
  • Ask your child to talk about what they are touching. You might ask leading questions like: “Describe how smelling the apple candy makes you feel?” or “What can you tell me about Apple Jacks cereal?” or “What are the steps to building a (pretend) apple pie?” This encourages language development and helps strengthen neural pathway connections. 
  • Have your child sort red apples from green apples and red cereal from green cereal. Place one color in one pie crust and one color in the other. 
  • Encourage counting. How many apple candies fit in one pie crust? etc.

Close up of a child's hand scooping ingredients in or out of a pie shell in the sensory bin.

Books to Read with our Apple Pie Sensory Bins

We have two different apple pie sensory bins. This one is taste safe, and our other one is a completely different sensory experience. Perfect bins to use back-to-back when you can plan a trip to the orchard for picking apples, and read these books together at the same time. Want more book ideas? We’ve got a whole different list on our regular Apple Pie Sensory Bin so you have lots of options! 

The Apple Pie that Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson

Apples Here by Will Hubbell

The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall

Apples by Gail Gibbons

How Do Apples Grow by Let’s Read and Find Out About Science
 
Close up of a spoon with apple candy hovering over the sensory bin.

Why Sensory Bins Make Sense

There is so much goodness in sensory play. The definition of sensory play is any activity that purposely engages the senses. Since our five senses are the primary way that children explore and learn about the world, every opportunity to stretch those brain muscles and play with materials that give feedback is positive. Problem solving skills are honed as children guess what something will feel like, experiment with material, test their theories, and come up with solutions.
 
Neural pathways are developed and strengthened as connections are made between how something looks or smells, how it feels to the touch, and how it behaves in a scoop or in the palm of the hand. The need for sensory input is satisfied, and if you have a sensory seeking kiddo who will get that input one way or another, time spent in sensory play is time not spent touching everything on every aisle in the hardware store, or unproductive making messes around the house.
 
Sensory play is well known to reinforce learning. That’s why it is so valuable to add books and cooking and apple picking and crafting and science experiments to the sensory experiences you provide. That’s a lot of benefits, and we’ve barely scratched the surface! Read more about the amazing benefits of sensory engagement through play.
 
A more distant view of the taste safe sensory bin with a "completed" apple pie in one of the crusts.