Sensory Bin Ideas For Toddlers and Preschoolers

Sensory play at a young age is very important for children’s development. It gives children an opportunity to through hands-on tactical play. The following article provides a list of sensory play items that can be included in a sensory bin for children to explore.

Benefits Of Sensory Play and Sensory Bins

Sensory Play engages children in a constructive environment and also enhances their academic development, emotional and social development, behavioural development, and so on. The sensory bins encourage and support various types of development and are great experiences for children to engage in.

Sensory Bin Play Ideas

Sensory bins can be themed for holidays, seasons, and academic skills. Here are some ideas of what can be added to a sensory bin.

Rainbow Pom Poms

You have to fill the sensory bin with a variety of rainbow pom-poms. Choose poms that vary in colour, size, and texture. As children play, they will naturally start to notice and comment on the properties of the poms. You also can add a tong to instruct them or to encourage them to pick up one particular colour and shape of balls. It will help to develop their sensory development along with fine motor development and hand-eye coordination.

Shredded Paper

It is a very cheap, easy, and readily available sensory bin filler. You can use lightweight colourful shredded paper to fill the bin. You can also use light paper-cut animals, leaves, and anything to hide in the shredded paper bin. You can ask the children to find it out by using to hands. Later you can ask the children to find out the hidden things and pick them up by using tongs. To use this sensory bin, the children dig through the paper to find the desired things. It is such a fun way to practice recognising different things as well as other developments such as motor development, sensory development, and hand-eye coordination also takes place.

Kinetic Sand

Kinetic sand is one of those wonderful, mysterious substances that every preschool classroom needs. There are so many fascinating qualities in kinetic sand: the way it pours, the way it packs together, and the way it just sticks together for easy clean-up. You can play with different things with kinetic sand that improves children’s sensory development. Some things you need to have to play with the kinetic sand such as beach moulds (animals, letters, sandcastles), seashells and ocean toys, cookie cutters, kitchen utensils (sieve, potato masher, slotted spoon), cars, trucks, and trains.

Wrapping Paper

This is another sensory bin activity. You can ask the children to cut the wrapping papers and then wrap them around pen stands, toothbrush stands, pencil holders, etc. It is a good sensory activity where your child can practice important scissors skills. As they are in the learning phase their little snips of paper can make quite a mess. Don’t let them fall on the floor; just place the wrapping paper, ribbon, and scissors right into the sensory table.

Christmas Tinsel

You can provide children with cheap Christmas trees on the decoration tables and also provide some decorative items and ask them to decorate the Christmas trees. You can add plastic ornaments, garland, and tinsel to make the trees decorated. Children can work at the sensory table to decorate the tree. It will not only enhance fine motor skills but also improves the imagination of children and make engross them with different creative ideas.

Winter Scene

Gather all the decorative things like crystal balls, plastic vase fillers (these come in various sizes, shapes, and textures), clear beads, snowflake shapes, and plastic ice cubes to make a winter scene. In addition to that, you can also add bottle-brush evergreen trees, small pinecones, and little woodland animals. Children will engage in pretend play, act out winter scenes with the animals, and talk about the winter season. This will help the students with various development such as will enhance creative thinking, vocabulary development, science, and seasons.

Top Soil

Topsoil, not mixed with a chemical, or regular old dirt from the garden makes an easy, cheap, and intriguing sensory bin filler. It can engage the students in digging it up and bringing it to the sensory table. For accessories, you may use inexpensive clay pots, artificial flowers, child-sized gardening gloves, small trowels, plastic worms, toy bugs, spiders, etc. It will help the children to increase their exploration capacity, hand-eye coordination, pretend play, and creative thinking.

Soapy Water

It is a fun activity for pre-schoolers. Pre-schoolers will play with it for hours. You can make the sensory bin by following the methods below:

You need to add tear-free baby shampoo
Next, turn the hose on
After that fill the sensory bin with the full force water from the hose.
Watch the bubbles form!
Play and enjoy. Refill as desired

You may add, sponges, dish brushes, clothes for washing, funnels to pour water in different bottles and holders, cups, and finally keep large beach towels for drying off afterwards.

Apart from sensory benefits, you can teach a child, the properties of water, and life skills.

Other ideas include: