Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Christmas Sensory Bin

Christmas Activities for Toddlers

Festive sensory bin, fine motor skills activities, arctic animals, playing snowballs, creating music with jingle bells, a craft and fun with stickers - I wish to inspire you, my dear reader, to make a creative Christmas bin for your little ones. It was weeks of fun and creative learning for my toddler last winter! You can find a collection of our Christmas Activities here: 10 Fun and Easy Christmas Activities.

Sensory Bin ideas for the holiday season

Sensory play is very important for toddlers - they learn through all their senses, including the sense of taste. I offered My Firefly this bin after she stopped taking non food items into her mouth; and somebody had to watch her playing for safety reasons.

What is Christmas without jingle bells? My Firefly loved hers. We jingled to the nursery rhymes and Christmas songs, rolled them down the slide and to each other, and included them in our learning activities. The slide pictured below is built into our Step 2 water table. Everything went down that slide. 4 senses are in use for this activity: hand-eye coordination, touch, sound, scented cotton balls - so great for the developing brain!


Sensory Bin Materials and Tools

The water table is decorated with Christmas themed foam stickers. I tried to create two areas for the animals: land is top white and water is blue and white.  The base for the land is big home-made pom-poms. The ocean is a mix of different textures: packing fillers, cotton balls, big blue buttons, and foam shapes.


I included the tongs and different jars for transferring and pouring practice - great for fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination... and developing pretend playing.

We helped animals move around while discussing what each of them likes to do. Well, the penguin pom-poms mainly liked to be peeled and ripped apart.


Pictured below, our sensory bin is in action. I am looking forward to create a new holiday sensory bin this season!


Arctic regions and snow explorations
are so exciting for toddlers and preschoolers at this time of year! Our favorite activities can be found here:

Play with Light at Home: Northern Lights
Polar Bears and Lullabies
21 Gorgeous Snowflake Ideas


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1 comment:

  1. These are absolutely incredible, how have I never seen anything like this and why on earth did I not think to do it myself!! Kicking myself right now.


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