When the weather gets nasty, set up a snowy sensory bin inside…
This is something that we usually do at least once every winter at our house. When it’s too cold to get outdoors, or when someone isn’t feeling well enough to get outside and play, I bring a large, plastic container of snow into the house, and we set up a snowy sensory bin.
In the past we’ve made an ice cream shop or created a snowy world for the Polly Pockets to enjoy, but Friday, I decided to turn our snowy bin into a construction zone.
Because the weather has been quite cold, the snow in the yard was very hard and crunchy, so I let the bin sit on the counter for about 15 minutes after bringing it inside, to soften it up a bit.
Then I added an assortment of Little People vehicles, road signs and construction workers. I also grabbed a few other construction vehicles from our car bucket.
To keep your play area dry:
To keep the floor from becoming wet, I spread out a large quilt for the children to play on, as well as a couple of folded towels for the children to set their toys on as they took them in and out of the bin. A vinyl table cloth would also do the trick, either on its own, or under the blanket as an extra layer of protection.
Suffice it to say, the bin was a hit with the hooligans.
They played at most of the day, using the vehicles and people that I’d placed in the bin, and adding other assorted items that they collected from around the playroom.
We even created a snow-slide by setting our Fisher Price car ramp on a stool beside the bin.
Of course, the youngest ones had to sample the snow – just as they do when we’re outside.
The longer the children play with the bin, the softer the snow gets, and it’s great for the children to observe how its properties change. They would never see that happen this quickly when we’re playing outside.
It becomes softer and then heavier and wetter, and eventually things turn quite slushy, but it doesn’t loose it’s interest. We set the bin up mid morning, and the hooligans continued to play with out all throughout the afternoon.
When I finally dumped it outside at home-time, late in the afternoon, it resembled a slushy swimming pool.
Not bad. A full day of play for the “price” of a bucket of snow!
