Tag Archives: sensory bins

our Valentine’s candy shoppe

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Ok, I am so excited about this post!  Remember the Valentine’s Activity Bin that I put together earlier this week?  Well, I’d tucked it away for a few days, and on Friday, I brought it out and surprised the Hooligans with it.  I wish this photo did a better job of showing how their faces lit up when they saw it.

The smiles were huge.  There were excited ooooh’s and aaaaaaah’s (I mean look at it!  I still want to ooooh and aaaah over it, and I’ve been looking at it for days!),

and there were questions like “where you got this?”  and “what IS it?”,  and “we can take the lids off?”, and then, almost immediately, there was dumping…

and pouring, 

filling,

transferring, and sorting.

They cut

and tweezed,

and made cupcakes

and chocolates,

and created a big beautiful candy shoppe.We turned the plastic bin upside down, and it became a work-station/counter, and the Hooligans took on the roles of chocolatier and customer.

I made extra tweezers by folding drinking straws in half, a brilliant idea that I saw over at   Teach Preschool the other day.  Brilliant aren’t they?  Even Miss 2 was able to manipulate them.

You have no idea what an enormous hit this was.  I’m not kidding; they played with it for almost the entire morning.  Close to lunch we packed it up, and Ohhhhh my goodness, can I tell you how much fun it was to pack up?  It was a adventure in sorting and organizing.  It was awesome!  And then I played around with all of the bits and pieces setting it all up so it was ready to play with again.  Every time I set it up, I make some changes and group things together differently than they were before, to initiate new ways of playing with all it.  

This is easily the best bin we’ve had yet, and I can honestly say that I love setting it all up as much as the Hooligans love playing with it.

I’ll leave you with a few more pictures to give you some ideas for making one for your kiddos.  I’d love to see pictures if you put one of your own together!  Feel free to link up your photos on my Happy Hooligans facebook page!Have Fuuuun!

busy baskets

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Busy baskets: using common, every day items to create fun, educational and fine motor activities.

There are still two weeks left of summer break here, but I’m starting to get things ready for the Hooligans’ return.  I made our story stones the other day, a really fun and easy project, and I know they’ll be popular.

 

I’ve also found some neat stuff at thrift shops and yard sales this summer.  I sorted through, and organized them last night, and I’ve displayed them on a table just outside the toy-room door, where the Hooligans will see them in all their glory, as they’re going down the stairs.  I thought for a minute about what I could call these collections of treasury-goodness, and came up with “busy-baskets”.

We won’t spend a great deal of time inside in the fall, so the baskets won’t likely get a lot of use until the weather gets colder, but until then, they’ll be great for rainy days and quiet time.

So, without further ado, here are the busy-baskets!

Glass beads with tongs and a small scoop.  The silk bag that I added has a fairly small opening, providing a challenging but fun activity for little hands.  It’s a great sensory activity too: the silky, slippery softness of the bag, and the smooth, cold, beads rattling around in the basket.  Love it!

A couple of months ago, at an auction sale, my mom found a huge (about 10000) collection of vintage buttons.  I felt like a kid in a candy store when I was sifting through them, and washing them up.  One of my favourite childhood memories is playing with a basket of buttons at my Nana’s house.  I love the way they feel when you slither your hand through a pile of them, and the soft clicking and clinking sounds they make.  They’re a favourite of mine for crafting and for sensory activities.  Anyway, my mom, knowing my love for buttons, picked the collection up for a steal.  Aren’t they pretty?

busy baskets - happy hooligans

We’ll use many of them for crafting, but I thought a busy-basket of buttons would be fun, and I added a scoop and a couple of small glass jars for filling.

Coloured glass beads are an all time favourite here. I’m not kidding, hundreds of hours have been spent, playing with these over the years.  The hooligans’ favourite bead activity is filling muffin and tart tins, but we also use them in sensory bins and for decorating play-doh. I placed a bowl-full beside the buttons for scooping and filling the little jars.

Another second-hand find this summer, these little wicker vehicles can hold treasures too.

A basket of assorted hardware: chains, nuts, bolts, clips etc.  I just rummaged through our tool boxes and came up with bits and pieces for little hands to sort and assemble.

paint chips - scissor skills

A tray of paint chip samples and a pair of scissors develops fine-motor skills when you encourage little ones to cut along the lines.  I have to pick up some brighter colours though; we used all of the brights and pastels when we were crafting for Easter.

Miniatures are always popular with little people, so when I saw this assortment of tiny copper vessels for A BUCK, I didn’t hesitate.  Gotta love thrift shops!

And, of course, we have the story stones!

And there you go!  Busy-Baskets: simple, inexpensive activities to keep little hands and minds busy!

sensory bins

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Creating a sensory bin for stimulating sensory, imaginative and fine motor play!

Sensory bins are easy to make, and can usually be put together with very little cost, using items that you have around the house.

Start with a container: a storage bin, cardboard box, foil pan or one of my favourites, a new, unused kitty litter box.

Pick a theme i.e. dinosaurs, jungle, food, holiday etc, and fill your container with a base material such as rice, sand, dry pasta, and add lots of small, interesting objects to engage your child. Adding an assortment of scoops, tongs and small jars and containers will take your bin to a new level as children pour, sort and sift the contents of the bin!

Here are a few of the early sensory bins we made here in our daycare:

Pop-poms, cotton balls, beads and tinsel. Add some coloured badminton birdies for “cones” and some scoopers and tongs for dishing up the “ice-cream”.

 

Ice Cream Shoppe Sensory Bin

popcorn kernels and construction vehicles

Construction Sensory Bin with Popcorn

articifical flowers, plastic rocks, colourful scraps of ribbon and tissue paper are good makings for a flower shop or garden sensory bin. Add little containers for “planting”.

Flower Shoppe Bin

water, food colouring and some toy boats, people and animals makes for fun water play

Ocean Sensory Bin (after the snow in the bin melted we added food colouring)

Bring the snow inside when it’s too cold to go out. The kids had a great time with it as the consistency changed in the warm kitchen. Once it melts they have a water bin to play in.

Snow Sensory Bin