Sensory Bins – Three Base Building Tips for Developmental Play
Sensory bins have been a topic of chatter among moms for the last few years – they offer fun and customizable free play for young kiddos that can help their development in countless ways. As a mom of a boy with a speech delay, sensory bins and activities became bread and butter to me – I felt incredibly helpless in the years that my son couldn’t speak (especially during the pandemic) and creating activities for him that would help his development became a huge priority for me.
If you’re anything like me you know that being a Pinterest mom can be many things; cheesy, complicated and expensive, right? Well, I made it my mission to be a Pinterest inspired mom without spending my mortgage on the tools I needed to do it – and today, I’ll give you my top tips for creating your sensory supply stash as well as some seasonal bin ideas!
Supplies:
A container: Sensory play should be contained in an area that is easy to clean up, easy to organize and easy to use, whether that’s a shallow Rubbermaid container, a lidded plastic box or a dedicated sensory bin, having this base for your projects is step number 1 in creating sensory play that’s easy to customize. We have this small sandbox that is so easy to use on a towel, tabletop or outside on a deck or yard, the legs are removable and the lid make for easy concealment if you want to keep your sensory activity in the bin for multiple days. Other favorites include snap lid containers or activity tables.
Sensory texture base: These bases are the foundation for your sensory activity, they can be anything from dry pasta, beans, sand, cereal etc. and can be things you purchase or DIY!
Some of my faves to keep on hand:
Wooden beads (please make sure fillers are age appropriate for your kiddo)
Dyed dry pasta or rice or beans – These can also be DIY’d
Shaving cream
Tools: Sensory bins are great for dexterity and hand eye coordination among many other things but providing tools and toys that create opportunities for filling and spilling are essential for open ended educational play like this. Here are a few of my fave grabs to keep in our kit:
Wooden scoops and bowls – these are great for Montessori moms!
Sensory Bin Kits: Listen, I fully understand that DIY or self-customizing might not be for everyone and sometimes the convenience of buying something all encompassing of your needs might be the way you want to go. There are plenty of amazing kits and themes you can buy online that will take the guesswork out of setting your sensory kits together. Here are a few of my faves:
Christmas Kit – this is a pretty good kit for the price, lots of tools and seasonal details
Rainbow rice starter kit – this has a little of everything, is a little pricey but gives you a really solid set of tools to get started
All-inclusive tool set – this has 5 bins of materials, everything from beans and poms to feathers, sand, scoops and tongs for a really decent price
Farm kit – this is great for also working on animals and animal sounds!
Whether you’re going the DIY route or the premade purchase route, filling your kit with these essentials will ultimately make it easy breezy beautiful covergirl for you to whip up a sensory activity on a whim whenever you need it, but there are so many more opportunities to customize once you have the base of your kit built out. Keep in mind that you don’t have to buy these supplies, you can always work with what you have at home – you want some orange rice? Sure, you can buy it, but you can also drop a dot of food coloring in a bag with dry rice, shake it around and let it dry out. Want to give scoops but don’t want to buy new ones? No problem, just toss some measuring cups in your bin and call it a day – my point here is that sensory bins are entirely what you make of them, they can be beautiful and curated, or they can simply be functional but they both hold the same value when it comes to developmental impact.
Some of my favorite season bins have been spooky Halloween using dollar tree tongs, eyeballs and spiders, a hot chocolate taste safe theme using cocoa pebbles, Starbucks latte cups and scoops and a fun summer bug hunt using kinetic sand and bug hunting tools! There are endless ways to make this experience a fun one for both you and your little – I’d love to hear what you’ve done with sensory toys or even better, if you use any of my tips above, I’d be giddy to hear about it!