Sensory Bins: A Fun Way for Kids to Learn

 Sensory bins are a fantastic way to engage young learners in open-ended, creative play. These bins, filled with interesting textures and materials, provide a stimulating environment for children to explore their senses of sight, touch, and smell. But sensory bins are more than just fun – they offer a wealth of developmental benefits for children of all ages.

Why Sensory Play is Important

Sensory play allows children to learn about the world around them through their senses. As they explore the textures, sounds, and smells of the materials in a sensory bin, they are developing important cognitive skills, such as problem-solving and critical thinking. Sensory play also helps to refine fine motor skills, those needed for tasks like grasping, pinching, and pouring.

In addition, sensory bins can be a calming and therapeutic for children. The repetitive motions of scooping, pouring, and sorting can be very soothing, and the focus required can help to improve concentration. Sensory bins can also be a great tool for promoting social interaction as children take turns playing and exploring the materials together.

Getting Started with Sensory Bins

Creating a sensory bin is easy and affordable. All you need is a bin or container, a filler material, and some objects to add variety. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Filler Materials: Dry rice, beans, pasta, crinkled paper, play dough, sand, water beads
• Objects: Scoops, cups, spoons, tongs, toy cars, figurines, buttons, pom poms

Once you have assembled your bin, let your child take the lead in exploring it. There are no right or wrong ways to play with a sensory bin. The important thing is that your child is having fun and engaging their senses.

Sensory Play Ideas

Here are a few sensory bin themes to inspire you:

• Rainbow Disc Sensory Bags: These rainbow bags are easy to make and offer a colorful yet mess free sensory play option.
• Garden: Fill the bin with crinkled paper grass and add plastic flowers, ladybugs, and gardening tools for a one of a kind, kid friendly garden sensory bin.
• Pot of Gold Sensory Bin: Make this easy sensory bin for Saint Patrick's day to offer a hands on play experience.

Sensory bins are a fun and educational way to keep your child entertained. So next time you're looking for a creative activity, consider putting together a sensory bin and letting your child's imagination run wild!

You can find more of my sensory play ideas here:

Starry Night Sensory Bags

Easy Dyed Rice

Lemonade Sensory Bin

Veggie Garden Sensory Bin

Rainbow Sorting Bin

Stars and Stripes Bin

Unicorn Fine Motor Bin

Egypt Sensory Bin

Feeding Frenzy Sensory Bags

Glow in the Dark Sky Bin

Basket of Fruit Process Art

Lemon and Limes find a second life after their prime with this easy and fun process art activity! It incorporates an introduction to weaving for small hands with a lot of painting fun. This activity is great for kids of all ages from Toddlers and Preschoolers, to older kids, like Rolf who is 11 now and still had fun with this!

Ok, first, let that sink in. Rolf is 11 now. When I started this blog, he was a baby. Literally, just a baby. And here we are 10 years later. Still sharing, growing and creating. Let's have a big group hug!

Next, isn't this such a cute process art project for kids? I love that the touchy, smelly parts make it super engaging for little hands. If you have been reading for a while now, you know how I feel about sensory play and  projects! (I love them!) Well, I also love to paint with Harper too!  We had a few lemons and limes in the fruit basket that were a little shriveled up and unappetizing so instead of tossing them out, we put them to work in an art project.

 Supplies: 

A lemon and a lime, sliced in half

A paper plate

Glue

Scissors

A brown bag of construction paper

Yellow and green paint

Directions:

Cut the brown paper into thin strips.

Offer your child one strip and encourage the child to glue it to the paper.

As you can see we used 3 vertical strips, then began the under/over process of weaving the horizontal strips.

Keep the weaving simple, you only need 3 vertical and 3 horizontal strips of paper. If your older child is creating this, feel free to encourage a more complicated weave!

Now comes the fun!

Pour a little paint (about a quarter size drop of each color) on a paper plate.

Offer the citrus fruit to the child, allow them to squeeze the juice out and pick at the seeds if they want to. They will want to because it is fun and it smells good! Just have a towel nearby to wipe their hands! When all of the seed picking and fruit squeezing is finished, encourage your child to press the fruit into the paint, and begin filling the woven basket with fruit!

Remind your artist to use all of the fruit and colors!

Allow to dry and display.

This is fun to make in the summer, when we are making loads of lemonade, so maybe save a few lemons after squeezing for an art project? Or pull this out in the winter, when the kids need a break. It is such a sunny little process art project that they are bound to love it!

Find more art and craft ideas for kids here

Easy Fine Motor Sensory Ball Activity

Preschoolers will love this easy to set up and totally engaging sensory ball activity. It combines fine motor work and sensory play for a boredom buster with benefits. Best of all this activity is super affordable to set up. You can get everything you need at the dollar store.

If you have been reading this blog over the last decade, you might know I am passionate about fine motor and sensory activities. I love creating activities that are fun and benefit development. This is no exception. It is so easy to set up, but it is engaging for kids and helps them build fine motor skills. No fancy equipment required.

All you need to make this fine motor ball is two simple things.

A bumpy ball 

Tiny rubber bands

This is so easy to set up.

Simply stretch the bands over the bumps of the ball

For younger children, use fewer bands

To challenge older children use more bands and make the loops complicated. 

Offer the ball to your child and encourage them to remove the bands. 

Have your child place the bands in a container, storage bag etc as these can be a choking hazard and dangerous to pets. Supervise this activity please!

If you are looking for more sensory and fine motor activities check out these popular posts.

Feather Beading Activity

Dino Rescue 

Rainbow Disc Sensory Bag

Rainbow Sorting Sensory Bin

 This rainbow sorting bin is so much fun for little ones. It has a variety of textures, shapes and colors for sorting on a rainy day, or anytime! This is perfect for kids who are learning colors, or just need some busy work!

My daughter loves rainbows, and she loves busy work, so this rainbow sorting bin was the perfect rainy day activity for her. We had dyed oats in our craft supplies, and with that, an idea was born to make this activity. Dying oats is so easy, and they are awesome to play with. 

I grabbed a 3 pack of mini pots at the dollar store  and painted them with Kwik Stix but you could use any type of small container, like a baby food jar, a food storage container or whatever for this bin. you just need something that your toddler or preschooler can place the beads in.

Supplies:

Dyed Oats  * instructions here*

Small containers

A plastic storage bin with a lid

Clothespins

Small spoons

Foam beads

Buttons or larger beads

After dying your oatmeal start layering it into the storage bin.

Place the pots or containers for sorting into the bin.

Add beads to the bin, or buttons. I like to offer a variety of textures in the beads. This bin has foam, wooden and standard crafting beads in it.

Add a few small spoons, clothespins and other items for sorting, pinching and measuring. Tongs and slotted spoons are great additions!

I added a clear plastic ornament to the bin too because I wanted to challenge Harper to place the items in a smaller opening.

Offer your child the bin. Ask your child to identify colors as they are picking them up. Encourage your child to sort the colors. This bin is fun to play in, and it is visually appealing too. The variety of textures is engaging. The use of clothespins and or tongs uses the small muscles of the hand. 

This bin has so many developmental benefits and it is a lot of fun too!

Harper loved this bin. She is a big fan of rainbows and busy work, so this rainbow sorting bin engaged her for a while on a rainy afternoon. When she was finished we snapped the lid on the storage bin and stashed it away for another day.

You can find more sensory play ideas here

Rainbow Disc Bag

Rainbow Rice Sensory Bin

Flying High In the Sky

This easy to set up sensory bin is perfect for little hands. It is fun to sort thru and play in, and it has a really fun feature for night time play; this Flying High in The Sky Sensory Bin Glows in the DARK!

We have been making sensory bins for about 8 years now.Even though Rolf is a tween and is generally too cool for my projects, even he wanted to get his hands into this one. I used things we had in our craft supplies, but for your convenience I added affiliate links to help you find some of these items that you may not have.

Supplies:

A Storage Bin with a lid

Neon Blue Food Color

Glow in the Dark Paint

A zipper seal baggie

White Rice, Uncooked (2 cups)

Rainbow Ribbon

Toobs - In the sky

Tongs

Glow in the Dark Stars

Cotton Balls

To dye the rice

Place 2 cups of white rice into a zipper seal baggie.

Add 2 tablespoons of non toxic glow in the dark paint (I used art deco brand) and 10 drops of neon blue food color to the baggie.

Seal and shake well.

Pour the rice on a paper towel, paper plate, or something like an old cookie sheet and allow to dry for about 4 hours. You may need to stir halfway through the drying time.

To assemble the bin:

Cut several sections of rainbow ribbon in various lengths from 1 to 3 inches.

Gently "fluff" several cotton balls to resemble clouds.

Pour the dry, dyed rice into the storage bin.

Bury several sections of rainbow ribbon in the rice bin.

Place the remaining rainbow ribbon on the top of the bin.

Bury several plastic glow in the dark stars in the rice bin.

Sprinkle the remaining stars on top of the bin. 

Add fluffy cotton clouds to the bin.

Add the planes and helicopters from the tube of Toobs 

Add a pair of tongs to the bin and invite your child to explore.

The tongs add a challenge to the bin, which is excellent for practicing fine motor skills.

I like to make sensory bins in a container with a lid,so we can snap the lid on it when play time is over and revisit the activity later.  For bins like this that are fun to play with anytime, that comes in handy because my kids want to dig around in this one all the time!

Here is the bin after dark. We LOVE glow in the dark activities! 

Some of our favorite glow in the dark activities include:

No Electric Night Lights

Galaxy Glow in the Dark Slime

Find more sensory ideas here:

Sensory Play

Feeding Sharks Sensory Bag

This shark feeding sensory bag is tons of fun  for little hands! Made with super simple supplies, this sensory bag is perfect for shark week, or anytime your kids need some fin flipping fun!

I have quite a collection of blue, gray and blue gray paint samples in my kitchen junk drawer.  I love to paint. Walls, cabinets, boards, trim. Anything that requires no real thought nor detail is my jam so I am always grabbing samples of my preferred colors in hopes of finding a new project.

I finally found good use of some of the paint samples with this feeding sharks sensory bag. It wasn't too complicated to put together and my kids thought it was awesome. I hope your kids do too!

This post contains affiliate links.

Supplies:

Hair gel

Glitter

Scissors

Paint samples

A zipper seal sandwich bag

Water Beads

Directions:

Cut a shark from a grayish blue paint sample. Make sure the shark has an open mouth!

Cut a few assorted sized fish from any other color paint samples.

Fill a zipper seal sandwich bag with hair gel.

Add a generous amount of glitter to the bag.

Add a few water beads to the bag. 

Add the shark to the bag, and the fish too.

Close the bag and offer it to your child. Encourage the child to feed the shark the fish.

This is a fun quiet time activity for toddlers and preschoolers. If your kids don't have "nice hands" you can reinforce the edges with duct tape to prevent any accidental bag busting that could occur.

You can find more of my sensory bag ideas here

Reader favorites include:

Bedtime Sensory Bags

Squishy Eye Sensory Bag

Button Tower STEM Activity

Button Towers are an awesome way to spend the afternoon for stem loving kids! This activity comes together with only two supplies to keep the kids entertained and building all day long.

Now more than ever, creative exploration is important for kids.  Mine have been out of school for over 3 months already and we are not sure what the new year will hold. We have been staying at home, and seeing what we can do with the things we have on hand. This Button Tower Stem Activity has been a big hit with both of my kids, and all of the other kids in the neighborhood too! 

You only need 2 supplies to pull this off. Kids will love seeing who can build the biggest tower and what methods work, as well as which ones don't work!

Supplies:

Buttons in assorted sizes

Play Doh

Directions:

Roll an assortment of play doh balls in various sizes.

Offer an assortment of buttons and instruct the children to build a tower.

My kids opted to alternate balls of doh and buttons to stack them up.

They said the key to making them stand was how you press the button into the doh.

Sometimes the towers tumble over on the second or third button; sometimes they stack easily. Either way it goes; it is loads of fun and presents an enjoyable challenge that kids of all ages will love.

I love that this was as simple to set up as digging around in my craft supplies. Some of the best activities really are simple in design.

Be sure to supervise little ones with this, as buttons can pose a choking hazard.

Find more fun ideas for kids here

Reader favorites include:

Seashell STEM Towers

Easy Aquarium Craft