How can I use sensory bins to teach my child?

I’ll be honest, I resisted sensory bins for a long time before I started using them with my kiddos. They just seemed too simple to be as great as everyone said. The truth is, kids need things that are simple. They thrive with simplicity. I also learned that my kids love a brand new sensory bin and can stay busy for a long time with it, but only when it’s brand new. So, I have to change things up frequently which means using sensory bins in a new way each time. Here are 6 great ways to use sensory bins. After that, there are also 2 bonus sensory ideas using playdough. Don’t forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom for a chance to win your own sensory bin starter kit.

How to Use Sensory Bins

1. Treasure Hunt

Put small objects (like gold coins for St. Patrick’s Day or egg fillers for Easter) in the sensory bin base (rice, sand, dried beans, etc.). Hunt for the objects using hands or even a spatula. Put objects in a bowl until they are all found.

2. Imaginative Play

Set up sensory bin with finger puppets, animals, dinosaurs, people, flowers, etc. Let child create stories to act out using the pieces in the sensory bin. Try to leave it as open ended as possible so your child can use his or her imagination.

3. Teach Care of Objects

We all know that kids can be careless and often break things. By using ceramic or glass in a sensory bin you give your child the opportunity to play with things carefully. It won’t happen overnight, but in time your child will learn to take care of objects better.

4. Scooping and Pouring

Scooping and pouring teach fine motor skills as well as hand eye coordination. They may seem unrelated, but these skills really help with writing. Use cups, bowls, ladles, etc. to scoop and pour sand, dried beans, small rocks, dried rice, etc.

5. Transferring and Spooning

Transferring and spooning also really help with fine motor, hand eye coordination, and writing. Pour sand (or water, rice, beans, colored sand, etc.) from a pitcher to a cup. Spoon small rocks into a bowl. Transfer pompoms from sensory bin into an ice cube tray using tongs. Tongs are an especially great transferring item because they help a lot with correct pencil grip. Also, using an ice cube tray for the pompoms teaches one to one correspondence which is an important math skill.

6. Matching

Using stamp pens or dot markers, stamp circles onto a blank piece of paper. Transfer pompoms (or math cubes, buttons, etc.) onto the colored circles using tongs.

Playdough

Playdough is an amazing sensory material for many reasons. It is very open ended so your child can play a different way every single time. It requires finger and hand strength to manipulate which will really improve writing. It appeals to many senses especially if you use scented playdough like this. Classic play-doh or homemade playdough are both great too. Here are two fun ways to play with playdough.

1. Ice Cream Parlor

Use this ice cream set and make ice cream cones and banana splits with playdough. Add vanilla extract, strawberry extract, or cocoa powder to make your playdough smell like ice cream. Use glitter or jewels to look like sprinkles.

2. Cookies and Cakes

Use this baking set to make playdough cookies, cakes, and any other foods you can imagine. Scent playdough with vanilla extract or cocoa powder to make them smell like cookies. You can even add fun scents like raspberry extract, mint flavoring, or blueberry flavoring for “frosting.”

If you want to do sensory bins with your child, but need some supplies to get started, never fear! Just join the giveaway. This giveaway is for a sensory bin “starter kit” and it includes a green sensory bin, a 5 piece utensil set, and a 10 piece cup and saucer set. All items have been provided by IKEA and I can attest to their quality. I have been using these items long before this weekend and I love them! These items give you almost everything you need for a complete sensory bin. Just add a sensory bin base (colored sand, dried beans, aquarium gravel, cotton balls, shredded paper, etc.) and you are ready! Giveaway ends in one week on Saturday March 15.

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Check out my other sensory bins (scroll to bottom) and tot trays for more sensory teaching ideas. Follow me on pinterest, facebook, twitter, or google + for updates on my latest posts, or join my monthly newsletter (see sidebar). If you have a toddler, check out my Toddler Curriculum which is only $14.99!

IKEA Items Used

• TROFAST storage box
• DUKTIG 5-piece kitchen utensil set
• DUKTIG 7-piece toy baking set
• DUKTIG plate/bowl
• DUKTIG 10-piece coffee/tea set
• SANDIG 10-piece toy ice cream set
• TITTA DJUR finger puppets
• PLASTIS ice cube tray
• KULORT decoration sand/stones

Where can I find some great ideas?

So, I’m a Pinterest junkie. If you follow me, you may have noticed that I pin All. The. Time. I did take a short break after baby Sport was born, but I’m back into full gear enjoying Pinterest. What can I say? I’m a visual gal and seeing beautiful pictures with great ideas for kids’ activities and crafts just makes me excited. Plus, when I pin something, I feel like I did it, even when I didn’t. :) I’m not the only one who does this, right? Who doesn’t love a sense of accomplishment with absolutely no work?

If you don’t follow me yet, follow me here.

Annnnyway, now that I’ve gone off on way too long of a tangent, I’ll get onto my point. I want to share some of my favorite pins with you. Why? Because these ideas are awesome. Not only does pinterest give me beautiful pictures to look at and a false sense of accomplishment, it also helps me find great ideas and blogs that I would never know about otherwise.

Here were some of my favorite ideas found via Pinterest this week. If you love any of these ideas, be sure to click on the link and leave a comment letting the blogger know you loved it.

Rainbow Sponge Painting on the Easel

Playdough Fun Animal Matching

4 Easy Indoor Activities

Race to Fill the Cup

Shape Penguins

And just because I think it’s really interesting to see which things are popular at any given time, here was the most pinned picture from Moms Have Questions Too this past week.

How to Start Tot School

Don’t forget to follow me here.

What exact phrases do I use to say each lowercase letter when teaching the lowercase alphabet?

I have another video for you today! This one teaches the actual letter formation prompts for the lowercase alphabet. You’ll probably want to check out this video which explains what letter formation is. Download your own letter formation prompt sheet here. This is the paper that I use to know what to say for each letter. You can also read this post for more ideas to teach letter formation.

A HUGE thanks goes to my sister Alyse from The Cheery Penny for helping me record and edit this video. She is helping get into the video making world since she is already a pro at it. More thanks (or not thanks, I’m not really sure yet) goes to Alyse for helping get my personality on camera. She insists that showing my true personality will make videos more fun for you to watch. I’m not entirely sure this is true because I am a little weird sometimes. So, you tell me, do you like seeing my true weird-ness?

What is an early childhood education curriculum for toddlers that is fun for boys and girls?

The theme for this week of tot school is D is for dance. I’ll be honest, this was my attempt at a “girly” theme so that my Toddler Curriculum would be fun for boys and girls. Since I have 3 sons and no daughters, making “girly” activities is sometimes hard for me. I think this theme actually turned out well though.

I made it more of a dance and music theme instead of just dance. Because of all the music things, Smiley Man didn’t reject it for being too girly. He loves music so this was a fun theme for him, despite the tutus. If you do have a daughter, you can definitely adapt the theme to include a LOT more dancers and tutus and pink and purple. I really wanted this toddler homeschool curriculum to be fun for boys and girls and I think I definitely achieved that with this theme.

(Smiley Man is 34 months old. Go here to read about appropriate ages for this curriculum)

Make the Letter

This week, we made the letter D with yarn and glue. Smiley Man glued the yarn on the D the first day of tot school and then he traced the yarn with his finger on the other days.

Learning Notebook

The learning notebook pages are always a big hit, but I think it’s just because Smiley Man loves these dry erase crayons. I was really surprised at how good he is getting with these “Which One is Different?” pages. This printable and more are included in the Toddler Curriculum.

Tot Trays

Theme: Homemade musical instruments (toilet paper roll “sticks,” oatmeal container drum, shoebox guitar, straw flute.

Small Spaces: Pass small party favor flutes or slide whistles (from Dollar Tree) through the middle of masking tape without touching the sides.

Pasta: Sweep colored pasta using a small broom onto dancer’s tutu. (printable included)

Counting: Make 3 small button snakes and write the numbers 1-3 on the buttons. Cut 6 dancers from felt to go on the button snakes. Put the right number of dancers on the snakes.

Puzzle: Make a popsicle stick puzzle with the dancing shoes or the violin picture. (printable included)

Supplies Used: oatmeal container, straws, masking tape, small broom, buttons, felt, popsicle sticks, popsicle stick puzzle tutorial

Tray Printables

I cut out the squares for this pattern page, but Smiley Man loved gluing the pieces on. Sometimes I will do part of a page (like cutting the squares) if I can tell Smiley Man doesn’t have the energy or desire to do it. Usually he is more willing if he only has to do part of the work.

Letter Activities

One letter activity we did this week was read the D book from starfall.com. I am not a sponsor of Starfall or anything like that, but I totally would be if I could because I absolutely LOVE their website. I’m pretty sure Little Bear basically learned how to read thanks to Starfall. Smiley Man also loves their interactive letter books.

Books

I wanted to get Giraffes Can’t Dance from the library for this week, but they didn’t have it when we went. :( We just enjoyed some non-themed books this week.

Letter D Craft

I didn’t know if Smiley Man would enjoy making this twirly wand, but he surprised me and loved it. He loved how the ribbons moved around when he shook it. Instructions are in the Toddler Curriculum.

Sensory Bin

We used shredded paper as our sensory bin base this week and it was a huge hit. Smiley Man loves digging through the sensory material to find all of the hidden treasures. His favorite part of the sensory bins though is when I help him trace each letter as we say its name. Read more about our ABC sensory bins here.

It was hard for me at first to come up with preschool curriculum ideas that were fun for both boys and girls, but I was really proud of how great this theme worked out. It was really fun for Smiley Man, but I’m pretty sure even the girliest of girls would enjoy it too.

Other Posts You Might Like:

• Toddler Curriculum and Schedule
• A is for Apples Toddler School
• How to Start Tot School

We’ve found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites!

No Time for Flashcards, Train Up a Child, Teach Beside Me, 1+1+1=1, Living Montessori Now, In Lieu of Preschool, ABC & 123, Sun Scholars, All Our Days, Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails, Homeschool Creations, 123 Homeschool 4 Me, Teaching Mama.

Where can I find a printable that will help teach my child patterns?

It’s time for the final post in our pattern activities series. If you’ve missed any of our other pattern activities, check the bottom of the post for links to the other activities. Also, check out our store page for activity packs of our other series.

Today’s pattern activities for preschoolers uses a free printable that I made. Throughout this series, I have been trying to use different materials for pattern play. Smiley Man has a sudden interest in math cubes lately, so I figured they would be perfect for teaching patterns. Quick side note: Here are the math cubes that we have (and whose colors I based the printables off of); however, I don’t really love them. They work just fine, but I really wish I had bought these math cubes instead.

The idea behind these math cube printables is pretty straightforward. Just print them and use math cubes to cover the squares to make patterns. I didn’t make any blank squares this time because I was targeting a slightly younger crowd. If you do have an older child though, there are plenty of ways to make these printables a bit harder.

Have your child snap the pieces together instead of just placing them on the squares. You can lay the long piece on the paper above or below the squares, or build a tall tower with the same pattern.

You could also have your child use tongs to put the math cubes onto the right squares. This would help them work on math skills and fine motor skills. Don’t forget to check out our other pattern activities for preschoolers.

• 3 Ways to Use Pattern Boards
• Seasonal Sticker Patterns
• Free Pattern Coloring Printables
• Pattern Bracelets
• Patterned Name Art
• Colored Marbles on Golf Tees

We’ve found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites!

No Time for Flashcards, Train Up a Child, Teach Beside Me, 1+1+1=1, Living Montessori Now, In Lieu of Preschool, ABC & 123, Sun Scholars, All Our Days, Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails, Homeschool Creations, 123 Homeschool 4 Me, Teaching Mama.