Fall Sensory Bin

To start off, let me tell you that it was my toddler who had the maximum fun time with this sensory-bin. She is at that time in her childhood, where getting her hands into anything and to feel it is her idea of fun. At the same time, she does pop in (eat) that occasional 2 day old cereal from under the couch or that forgotten blueberry under my fridge. Hence, my base for the sensory-bin was not an edible product. It may be seem counter-intuitive. The reason it works for my toddler is she specifically pops in ONLY food items and I don’t want her snacking on the sensory-bin So our base was simply birdseed and it was perfect. The girls got into the my sensory-bin stash before I get to it and they had their mini discovery session while discussing and labeling each item.

Time for the set up In a regular storage container, I dumped in some birdseed..Then spread around some silk fall leaves and some glass pebbles with spoons,forks and cups. There is no one set way to create a bin as it can be customized with the theme, what you have around the house, your kids’ interests. My toddler is into scooping and pouring. So I made sure that my base was easy to scoop and pour.

All the items which went into the bin were purchased from the dollar store. Putting together a sensory bin in itself is a fun and educational task if you involve your older kids to help you make a bin for their younger siblings to play with. My older one’s interest in sensory bin is waning off while my younger one’s interest is peaking. Big A is through the roof excited for small world play which is what she transforms her sensory into anyway. For this activity she did join us for a bit and she started off her sister with some pretend play ideas. We set up a tunnel for the pumpkins to hide in..

We set out some chairs for the fairies to join us. The stories ran for a while it turned into small world play for Big A. While baby A is an out-and-out sensory play girl, she did occasionally giggle with her sister listening to her small world stories. We also popped in some of the glass gems in the ice-cube tray and did some counting. As soon as the older one took off, the younger one did something she thoroughly enjoyed-cooking with the leaves.

It was such a fantastic experience for her picking up the leaves with her tongs and placing them on a fall platter and made a salad and served me up those leaves with some toasted pine nuts (birdseed) and a side of pumpkins.

While cooking there was so much scooping and pouring happening which really aided her hand-eye co-ordination.

After all that play which also included sitting inside the box and playing, the bin looked like this.

I love it.

• Fine motor skills practice with scooping, using the tongs
• Language and vocabulary via creative and imaginative play
• Math via counting
• Observation – minor differences in different colors of the leaves

Thanks for reading

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