Sensory Bins

A sensory bin is a fun way to help your child develope skills.  I call it playing with a purpose.  You fill a plastic bin with all kinds of objects of different shapes, sizes and textures.  Your child gets to play and learn at the same time.  You can fill a bin with something as simple as pasta, rice, beans or pom poms.  (I started out with pom poms because they are less messy when they are spilled on the floor.)  Then you can add in other elements.  For example check out my Ice Cream Shoppe sensory bin:

 I started with pom poms and I added ice cream spoons and bowls.  Benny was instantly interested in playing with it and so was I. Who doesn't love playing with play food?

 

 Right away he proved the first thing to learn from this method is motor skills.  Using the spoon he picked up the ice cream pom poms and  he put them in the bowl.  He is also learning about transferring objects from one container to another.

 Eventually, he will also learn to categorize and sort the colored pom poms into the appropriately colored bowl.  He doesn't really understand colors yet for now I am happy that he is tuning his fine motor skills.

The possibilities for sensory bins are endless.  You can do holiday themed bins, letters of the alphabet, ocean themed, colors, animals, shapes, bugs, garden, weather, space, ect.  I just like to add some sort of element that teaches something.  He would love playing around in a bin full of beans but if I hid objects in the beans he would learn to seek and find and categorize.  Try having your kid move pom poms with tongs or tweezers.  They can match baby animals to their mommies or finding the object that doesn't beong.  I am working on making a Fall sensory bin and I found some pine cones on the ground.  Some are big and some are little, I will include these in my Fall bin and teach him about different sizes.  Most supplies can be found just around the house or at a dollar store.  This is a great way for him to play and have fun but I have fun teaching him as well.