A Christmas Sensory Bin

I have been intrigued by the idea of sensory bins for quite some time. For those who may be unfamiliar with the concept, a sensory bin is a box or container filled with a variety of objects for a child to explore. Beyond being something fun and entertaining for the child to play with, the idea of a sensory bin is to gather an assortment things in a contained area that together stimulate multiple senses, including sight, sound, touch, and sometimes even smell. 

As the child explores the objects in the bin, he or she experiences each of these senses, and also has the chance to work on other important developmental skills such as: 

• Fine Motor (placing small objects into small areas, transferring objects, pouring, scooping etc.)
• Early Math (counting, patterning, sorting and matching)
• Spacial orientation and depth perception
• Visual discrimination (the ability to recognize the similarities and differences in the appearance of objects)

Sensory bins are often designed around a specific theme (a letter of the alphabet, a colour, a season, or a place), and can also be used to enhance learning about that theme.  With Christmas quickly approaching, this seemed like the perfect time to try and create one of my own.  Here is a picture of our Christmas themed sensory bin:

It contains cotton balls ("snow"), a variety of jingle bells, ribbon, silver Christmas cookie cutters. small boxes to open, a stainless steel container to fill and dump with, toilet paper tubes wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper, a miniature stocking, a red silk play scarf, rubber gingerbread people, and silver plastic ball ornaments with a variety of different textures and appearances (shiny, matte, smooth, glittery, and bumpy). 

C. quickly dove into it, exploring how he could pull apart the cotton balls, and scooping them up with the container.  He then discovered the jingle bells and the ornaments.  It was interesting to watch as he realized that the bells made noise when he shook them, but the similar looking ornaments did not.  Next, it was on to the paper tubes.  He was fascinated to see which objects from the bin fit through the tubes, and which objects did not.  Here he is shaking a tube to try and make an ornament come out:

Did you know that paper tubes make good hats too?  I hadn't thought of that:

I am sure that over the next few weeks, we will do a lot more exploring in the bin, and I am interested to see how it is used by other kids as well.  As a bonus, when playtime is over you can just put the lid on the box, and store it neatly away.