Learning To Be a Mom: Sensory Bin

Showing posts with label Sensory Bin. Show all posts

Okay, I'll admit these aren't real turkey feathers, but since Thanksgiving is right around the corner it seemed like the perfect opportunity to pull out the feathers. I've had these feathers forever. They get pulled out for random projects here and there. When I taught school, I had the kids write Thanksgiving words with the tips. For Little Brother I thought it would be fun to put them into a sensory bin.

We had so much fun playing together. We talked about colors and texture. He loved it when I tickled his face with them. My favorite was when we dropped them from up high and watched them float down. Sometimes it's those really simple activities that are the most fun.

Little Brother and I had fun playing with our new insect sensory bin while Sweet Girl was off to preschool. I found these cute insect finger puppets on amazon, but you could also look at the dollar store. (To be honest the only reason I didn't get the ones from the dollar store was because the bugs in their collection were too creepy for me. I need less scary bugs like ladybugs and butterflies.) I buried them in a tub of leftover Easter grass, you never know when you're going to need that stuff. Little Brother managed to take a small amount of Easter grass and pull it apart until it looked like I had given him three full bags of the stuff. I'm still finding strands of grass all over my house.Little Brother loved when I made the butterfly fly around or made the grasshopper jump up his arm. What little boy doesn't love digging through the grass looking for bugs? And this way you know they at least aren't touching real bugs, cause that's gross.

I'm a little slow getting today's post up because I have been busy bottling apples. This is my first attempt at it. So far so good, except the smell of apples on my hands is a little overwhelming. It will be nice to have some yummy apples all winter long. I can already taste the apple crisp. Anyway, Sweet Girl and I have been fun playing with apples over the past couple weeks, and here is our concluding activity, the apple sensory bin! Probably not a big surprise since I obviously love and do a lot of sensory bins. There are just so many ways to do them, and they keep Sweet Girl entertained for awhile.

For our apple sensory bin I used black beans as apple seeds. I made apples out of sandpaper and bubble wrap, and threw in our felt apple bean bag and the pom poms from our other apple activities. I wanted to have a lot of different textures for Sweet Girl to experience.

At first Sweet Girl just loved grabbing handfuls of the apple seeds and then letting them fall through her fingers.

Later she started using a scoop. As she picked up the different apples we talked about their textures. We have had a lot of fun with apples, and now it's time to move on. I'm not quite sure where we are going next. Maybe pumpkins. Any suggestions?

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A couple weeks ago Sweet Girl and I went to see the farm animals in town for the local rodeo. It is a tradition from when I was a little girl, and I love carrying it on with Sweet Girl. She loved to see the animals. We talked about each of their names and the sounds they make. I thought this would be the perfect time to put together a little farm sensory bin.

To make this farm sensory bin I bought a little tube of farm animals for $3 at Walmart, and some raffia to serve as the hay. This is not the fanciest looking sensory bin, I wanted to add something but could never figure out what to add, but we had so much fun playing with it. I don't think Sweet Girl has ever gotten so into a sensory bin before.

At first we just played with the animals and reviewed what they are and what they say. Then Sweet Girl started exploring the raffia. She threw it in the air. We marched on it and felt it with our feet. We laid down to "sleep" on it. Sweet Girl does such a cute fake sleep.

Sweet Girl practiced her fine motor skills by standing the animals up on top of the bin, which was not easy because they really don't stand very well.

It just turned out to be such a fun activity. Just goes to show that kids don't always need fancy. Lucky for me because fancy is not my forte.

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Our raking leaves activity yesterday based on the book Red Leaf Yellow Leaf by Lois Elhert was so much fun that I followed it up with another fall activity. I am just so excited about fall! I love the colors. I love the leaves. So I put them together in a fall sensory bin.

I used the popcorn kernels I saved from our popcorn sensory bin. I threw in some foam gourds I bought at the dollar store, and some fake leaves I had on hand. To top it off I threw in an orange spoon for stirring and an apple bean bag.

Sweet Girl stirred and scooped and poured popcorn kernels all afternoon. It was a little messy. Kernels went flying a few times.We talked about all the fall colors and the names of the items in the sensory bin. I still could not get her to say leaves. It kind of sounds like fleas when she says it.

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We are continuing our celebration of Mo Willem's fantastic book Hooray For Amanda and Her Alligator. Again, this is such a cute story, if you haven't read it you definitely should! Today we focused on the alligator. Because alligators are green we had an all green sensory bin. (I know the alligator in the story is kind of a bluish color, but we decided to go with a green alligator.)

For the bottom of the sensory bin I used colored rice. I mixed 2 cups of rice with 2 teaspoons vinegar and about 20 drops of green coloring in a ziploc bag.

Then I just searched through Sweet Girl's toys and gathered a few green items to add to the sensory bin. This was a fun activity for Sweet Girl. She scooped and raked and dug in the rice. She was so fascinated by the rice that at the very end she grabbed a handful and shoved it in her mouth. She quickly realized it didn't taste good and she let me scrape it all out of her mouth. That girl is quick!

Several months ago Sweet Girl got a hold of the shampoo bottle in the tub and turned her bath into a surprise bubble bath. I thought she would like it, but it seemed to stress her out to have the bubbles all over her. Now I thought it might be fun to play with bubbles again, but in a smaller scale to prevent frustration.

This time Sweet Girl had a lot of fun scooping bubbles up into her hands. We clapped and sprayed them everywhere, we shook them all over the kitchen and we blew them on each other. Sweet Girl added the word "bubble" to her vocabulary.

As we were playing I remembered that Baby, that's the name of Sweet Girl's baby, was pretty dirty, so I thought we could give her a bubble bath. Sweet Girl had so much fun covering Baby in bubbles, and she came out very clean.

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I love sensory bins. There are just so many different things to put in them. This week we did a popcorn sensory bin. I bought the plastic popcorn bucket at the dollar store. It came in a set of two, so now I'm looking for ideas for how to use the other one. I just used cotton balls as the popped popcorn. Very simple.

Sweet Girl loved grabbing handfuls of the kernels and pouring them into the popcorn bucket. Unfortunately her aim leaves something to be desired. By the time we were finished there were a lot of popcorn kernels on the kitchen floor.

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I Can Teach My Child

The Sunday Showcase

I have seen lots of ideas for an ocean themed sensory bin, so I decided to give it a try. I have become a big believer in sensory bins. Sweet Girl loves them, and I love how they keep her interested for so long.

For our Ocean Sensory Bin I bought a bag of blue rocks from the dollar store. I also found ocean animal shaped sponges there. Then I pulled the leaves off of some fake flowers I have for a different project and stuck them in too, and of course a little water to top it all off.

Sweet Girl had so much fun with the rocks. We talked about their color and texture and experimented with the sounds they can make. We talked about the animals. her favorite part was squeezing the water out of them. We finally had to stop when she started sucking the water out and nearly bit the head off of the turtle.

This was not nearly as fancy as some of the ocean sensory bins I have seen on Pinterest, but I have found that Sweet Girl doesn't care how fancy things are. We just have fun exploring and playing together.

The oatmeal sensory bin was so fun that we had to do another sensory bin. This time we used flour. I threw in a few things I had around the house: some foam flower cutouts, big pom pom balls, a small plastic cup and a magnifying glass. We had so much fun running our fingers through the flour. I just happened to use whole wheat flour, and it felt so silky smooth. It felt so nice I had to call Husband over to feel it too.

While we played, we talked about the textures smooth and fuzzy. We talked about flowers that grow and flour you make cookies with. (She really perked up when she heard cookies. She knows that word.) Mostly she used the magnifying glass and the cup to bury the other objects.

Towards the end flour was being launched in all directions. She had quite the lap full of flour. She did try to help me sweep it up, and boy was she sad once it was all cleaned up and put away. I had to get a picture of her sad face before I comforted her.

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I have been wanting to try out some of the sensory bins I have been reading about on Pinterest and other Mommy blogs. I have to say, I have become a believer in sensory bins. The day that we did this activity I wasn't feeling very well and I just needed a few minutes to sit and relax. I put this sensory bin together and Sweet Girl sat and explored for about half and hour. It was great.

She loved burying the ping pong balls with the oats using her measuring spoons, and stirring them with her wooden spoon. We both enjoyed picking up handfuls of oats and feeling them fall through our fingers back into the bin.

Overall a super fun activity. I even saved the oats in a baggie so we can play again.

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