Sensory Bins: Small Playground, Big Learning

While there are many ways to help our young children embrace and explore their senses, one of the easiest ways is setting up a sensory bin. Use these quick tips to create your own sensory bin and give your child a small playground that can lead to big learning.

Why sensory bins?
Imagine for a minute that you’re a baby inside your mother’s womb, and you’re about to enter a new world where you will soon smell, taste, and see the brilliant colors of the outside world. As much as you use your imagination, there’s really no way to understand what it’s like unless you enter the brighter, more aromatic, more delicious, more colorful world that you know. Perhaps that mental image provides just a glimpse as to why engaging and interacting with the world around them is such a powerful learning tool for children.

“Take for instance, the word ‘slimy,’” wrote Danielle Steinberg in a child development article for PBS. “Sure, you can explain what it means with different adjectives, but until you experience something slimy firsthand, that’s all it will be: words.”

Sensory bins allow children to personally engage with objects and take in learning benefits that include improving fine motor skills, understanding language, solving problems, and simply being creative.

What items should I put in a sensory bin?
The former elementary teacher turned stay-at-home mom blog author of Busy Toddler suggests three foundational elements of a good sensory bin. First, find a tub or bin that has high enough sides to keep materials in while remaining short enough to easily store. Next, use “bases” like water, rice, beans, bird seed, cornmeal, or sand. Lastly, pick some fun tools in a variety of sizes. Examples include funnels, jars, measuring cups, and tongs.

What can you do with a sensory bin?
Kids are usually off and running with their own imaginations, but if you want to have a specific task in mind, try one of these three ideas:

1. Hide the Animals: Add a muffin pan to the bin and place a small animal in each section that can be covered by scooping and pouring.

2. Use Magnets: Combine metal and non-metal items for a quick lesson on magnets.

3. Practice Writing and Recognizing Letters: Use tools or your finger to quickly create and erase capital and lowercase letters.