Sensory play is such a huge part learning for preschoolers and young children! Smaller-sized individual sensory bins are great options for helping kids calm down, giving kids something to do during transitions or after nap time, and stopping the spread of germs. A lot of the items can be found at dollar stores or in bulk on Amazon.
Start with containers or bins with lids, and make sure to put the child’s name on the bin. Each bin should have a sensory base/filler (ie. pasta, sand, shredded paper, etc.), as well as loose parts, manipulatives and tools.
Here are five ideas for individual sensory bins with a Spring theme.
Easter Sensory Bin:
| Pastel Colored Rice | Easter Mini Erasers | Plastic Eggs |
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Need to know how to make colored rice? Look at How to Dye Rice For Sensory Play
Garden Sensory Bin:
| Black Beans | Mini Plastic Pots | Kids’ Shovels | Flowers |
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Bug Sensory Bin:
| Split Peas | Plastic Bugs | Bug Collecting Jars | Tongs/Tweezers |
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Instead of split peas, you can use green colored rice.
Feed the Birds Sensory Bin:
| Shredded Brown Paper | Toy Birds | Colored Pipe Cleaners (worms) | Tweezers and Small cups for sorting |
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Children can use tweezers (or clothespins) to sort the different colored ‘worms’. Small cups for sorting work. You can also put numbers on the cups and have children count out the matching number of ‘worms.’ Sensory bin idea is from ModernPreschool.com.
Rainbow Sensory Bin:
| Rainbow Pasta* | Pipe Cleaners | Scoopers | Mini Paint Trays |
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*Ditalini Pasta works best for this. For full directions on how to make it, visit How to Make Rainbow Pasta for Sensory Play. This bin can be used for stringing pasta onto pipe cleaners or using the scoopers to sort out each color of pasta into the mini Paint Trays.