Birthday Rice Sensory Bin

Clara celebrated her 3rd birthday yesterday and recently she has really enjoyed playing in our sensory bin.  So, I thought is would be fun to surprise her and create a birthday themed sensory bin that she could explore this week for her birthday.

Clara's Cupcake Birthday Rice Sensory Bin

I filled the bin with plain white rice, which is our go to sensory bin filler. Then I added in multi-colored pom poms, a pack of birthday candles, individual silicone cupcake holders (I found these a few years ago in the dollar spot in Target), and finally since she turned 3 some number 3 cookie cutters and foam threes.  There are also an  assortment of spoons and scoopers.

She loved scooping, pouring, filling and decorating in her special birthday themed sensory bin.

Another fun game the girls like to play with the sensory bins is finding all of one type of object.  With this bin I hid all the number threes under the rice and Clara dug around to find them.

Linking up at Everyday Early Childhood where you can also find more great ideas for little kids.

Before you go be sure to check out our other SENSORY BINS.

(Just click on the underlined link for more fun posts!!)

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Rice Sensory Bin Challenge

My girls love sensory play and our Rice Bin has been one of their favorites since they were pretty young.  I have set up all different themed sensory bins with things that I thought the girls would find fun.  They always seem to enjoy scooping and pouring the rice from one container to the next.  When I found out about this child led Rice Sensory Bin Challenge I couldn’t wait to participate.  The awesome part about this challenge is that it is a child led play project.  All I did was fill one of our Plastic Storage Bins with some plain white rice and the rest was up to Juliette!

Here is what Juliette came up with:

She decided to add some of our Play-Doh toys to her Rice Bin.  This included, plates, a spoon and fork, ice cream cones, an ice cream dish, a whisk, candles and a paint palate.

She spend lots of time scooping and pouring the rice from one cup to the next.

  She also had fun making ice cream sundaes and singing “Happy Birthday!’

After awhile she came up with a Hide and Seek game for us to play.  She would hide one of the pieces under the rice and I had to find it.  Then I hid one of the pieces and she had to find it. 

I loved seeing and listening to her as she played with the rice.  She loved that she was in control of this activity, by picking everything out it was everything that she wanted and I loved that about this project!

For more great Rice Sensory Bin Activities check out these awesome blogs.  Don’t forget we all started with just a bin of plain white or brown rice and our kids did the rest!!!

• Little Bins For Little Hands
• A Mommy's Adventures
• Craftulate
• Creative World of Varya
• FSPDT
• Gift of Curiosity
• Glittering Muffins
• Here Come the Girls
• Kids Play Space
• Lalymom
• Life Over C’s
• Life with Moore Babies
• Minne-Mama
• P is for Preschooler
• Preschool Inspirations
• School Time Snippets
• Squiggles and Bubbles
• Still Playing School
  Suzy Homeschooler
• Teach Beside Me
• Teach me Mommy
  The Chaos and The Clutter

 

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Plastic Easter Egg Sensory Bin

This Easter sensory bin is such a simple idea, yet it has provided HOURS of fun for all three of my girls.  As I have mentioned before we have a HUGE collection of plastic Easter Eggs and I am always looking for new and different ways to use them.  This sensory bin was a spur of the moment attempt to keep Clara (11 months old) occupied while we decorated the house for Easter. I filled our sensory bin, which is just a large under the bed storage bin that I picked up at A.C. Moore, with all of our plastic Easter Eggs and the Bunny Egg Dipper Tongs that we use when we color Easter Eggs.  (I was excited that they get to use that more than once during the season too!)  Later I added an Egg Carton that they enjoyed filling up with eggs. 

Since there are a variety of sizes of eggs Juliette especially liked putting the little egg in the medium egg inside the large egg and surprising Emily with it. 
I thought it was pretty amazing that this bin kept a 7 year old, 4 year old and 11 month old busy and playing with each other.  These pictures make me smile every time I see them!

After a few days Clara discovered that is is also a lot of fun to climb into the sensory bin of eggs!!

Check out some of our other SENSORY FUN activities.

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Summer Fun List ~ Outdoor Oobleck

We are having so much fun completing the activities on our Summer Fun List.  I was watching my nephew and he read over our list and said he really wanted to do Outdoor Oobleck with us and that is just what we did.

I originally intended on filling a small baby pool with Oobleck, but I was really not sure how much cornstarch I would need to do that, I got five boxes and figured we could see how much that would make.  Once I got the boxes home I realized that we would need a smaller container for the Oobleck than I thought.   I was happy to find this under the bed storage bin in the shed which worked really well.   It probably could have used a few more boxes, but now we know for next time!

I dumped all 5 boxes into the bin and then added about 2 small buckets of water.  The recipe is 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water.  We also added green food coloring which left all of our hands a lovely tinge of green :0)

Outdoor Oobleck Fun!!!

The kids wore their bathing suits so that they could play in the Oobleck and then rinse it off in the pool.  

I hope to do this again with a few more boxes of cornstarch since we discovered that Oobleck is very relaxing for adults to play with too!

Water Play

Emily and Juliette have been enjoying the beautiful warm weather and loved playing outside in their bathing suits with our Step2 Fun Flow Play Sink (thank you Dad for finding this for us) although the faucet does not work anymore the girls loved washing their dishes and filling up the cups, bowls and teapot.

  Emily liked transferring water from one pot to the next.

My parents gave Emily this  Battat Kitchen Playsetset for Christmas a few years ago and we never opened them since the kitchen set we have came with everything already.  I had the same set when I was younger and loved it.  Now we can use these for outside creating and imaginative play.  My favorite part of this set is the working hand mixer that is next to Emily’s hand (yellow and red)  it is fun to watch it mix up the water.  I love that we have a stash of toys that were never opened or played with that I can use as special surprises throughout the year!

Juliette loved playing with the cups in the sink.  She would fill up the cups and then pour them out. 

I am looking forward to all of the creative outdoor play and fun that the girls will have with these toys during the summer!

Emily and Juliette and the Oobleck

We had so much fun playing with our own Oobleck after reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck, by Dr. Seuss. 

To make Oobleck all you have to do is mix about 2 parts corn starch to 1 part water and then add green food coloring.  For ours I did about 4 cups corn starch and 2 cups water.  I put it in our sensory bin and added a towel underneath.  Although it looks messy, it cleans up with water and a rag really easily! 

**When they were finished playing with it I just set it aside and let the water evaporate.  Then added more water and they were able to play with it again!

Juliette was not so sure about it, but each time I washed her hands she just came back for more!

We added some Little People to cover in Oobleck.  The girls thought this was a lot of fun!

Emily loved having me cover her hands in the Oobleck and then trying to pull them up really fast.

  We had it drip through a slotted spoon for a fun effect.  Juliette liked feeling it fall on her hands and Emily loved watching the stringy Oobleck.

Sensory Fun ~ Packing Peanuts and Pom Poms

I thought it would be fun to make a winter sensory tub and I have been saving some biodegradable packing peanuts for a while now just for this activity!  So I filled our sensory tub with packing peanuts.  Then I added some white and blue pom poms, cotton balls, silver and blue sequins and spangles and white, silver and blue pipe cleaners.  This added some fun colors and textures for the girls to explore!

I also added some blue training chopsticks for the girls to pick the pieces up with.  Then small, medium and large clear plastic containers and our snowflake silicone baking cups for them to fill up. 

Juliette loved putting the packing peanuts in the silicone baking cups.

Emily used the training chopsticks to transfer the pieces into the containers.

Sensory Fun ~ Fall Fabric Leaves, Popcorn and Split Peas

I filled our sensory tub up with a half a bag of popcorn kernels that were in the cabinet for years.  (I bought a fresh bag and couldn’t just through these out.)  I also added a bag of split peas and a bunch of fall fabric leaves and flowers.  I found a bunch of them while I was going through our fall decorations.  I didn’t have a use for them anymore so I thought they would be great for a fall themed sensory tub.

Juliette was able to test it out while Emily was taking a nap.  She loved using the scoop I found at my Grandmother’s house while helping her clean out some cabinets.

   She also liked just feeling the leaves and throwing them around the tub and then the floor.  There was quite a mess once she was finished, but she had a great time doing it!

C-A-T Letter Find, Sort and Graph

While I was looking for something in the basement I came across a box of all my teaching posters.  When I saw this bar graph one I knew that Emily would have fun using dry erase markers to create a graph.

1.  I found all the C-A-T magnetic letters that we had and hid them in our rice krispies sensory tub for Emily to find.

2. After she found all of the letters she sorted them.  I used pipe cleaners linked together to form a circle for her to sort them into.

3.  Next, Emily placed the letters on the bar graph chart that I had from when I was teaching 4th grade.  We compared the number of letters and talked about which had the most and which had the fewest.

4.  Finally Emily colored in the chart with dry erase markers.  She took off one letter at a time and colored the square.

The finished graph.  Emily was so proud of her work that as soon as Daddy came home she told him about it!

Sensory Fun ~ Rice Krispies

Both Emily and Juliette have really enjoyed playing with our newest sensory tub.  This time I filled it with Rice Krispies!  I had a box that has been in the cabinet for longer than I can remember, so instead of throwing them away I added them to our sensory tub with spoons and containers for them to scoop, pour and dump.  I also included rocks that my sister brought for both of the girls from her trip to the Hoover Dam.  Emily loved finding the different colored stones and putting them into the pull string bags.

Valentine’s Day Sensory Tub

 

PomPoms and Glittery Sensory Fun!!

Emily loves her rice sensory tub.  Usually we only have rice and some shovels and buckets in it, but for Valentine’s Day I added pink, white, red and purple pom poms in a variety of sizes.  I also added some pink, silver and red sequins.   I am thinking about adding some small foam hearts too!

The girls at the rice tub. 

 

Why use a sensory tub?  At first I thought this same thing, but decided to give it a try.  Emily loved it from the second her little fingers touched all those little pieces of rice.  For Emily if found our sensory tub  great for practicing, scooping, pouring, sifting all while having a lot of fun.  There are also many other benefits too.  Here is a great recourse about sensory tables or tubs.

Do you use a sensory tub at your house?? 

If you do what do you usually put in yours??

Fun With Rice

Emily's Rice Sensory Bucket

Emily really enjoyed playing in our new sensory bucket. I had gone to our Children’s Museum for a Messy Afternoon Program where they had rice set up at a table, and kept meaning to try it at home. Finally, after seeing it on a Teaching Tot’s post and noticing how much Emily enjoyed filling our dogs food bowl with a scooper, I decided I had to go and get the stuff for it.

I mixed green colored rice with white rice and then put two different sized containers for her to fill, a spoon and a funnel. She enjoyed testing out each object. After we were finished with it she asked me to “do rice Mommy” throughout the rest of the day.

Emily playing in her sensory bucket