Oh, how I love me a good sensory bin.  When Miss G was a toddler, we were sensory bin QUEENS.  Seriously though.  We probably had a minimum of two sensory bins going on any given day.  She loved them, I loved them, and they come with SO many benefits, so we just ran with it.  

Well, as soon Sam started digging in our freshly planted container garden, I knew exactly what we needed to put together for him – a gardening sensory bin!  A place where he’d be free to dig, fill, plant, and rake to his heart’s content.

So that’s exactly what we did.

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Here’s what it included:

– potting soil (the plainest, nothing added soil the store had)

– several small pots from the seedlings we’d purchased for our garden

– a kids’ gardening shovel

– some dried beans for seeds

– a mini gardening tool set

– plant tags from our seedlings

– faux tulips

We also used the double bin method that I often use with Sam (my boy who can destroy an entire room in approximately 30 seconds flat).  It’s not a perfect system, but it does help contain the sensory bin filler (in this case, soil) and the extra space can also be used to house materials you want nearby, but not necessarily right in the sensory bin itself.  This is our go-to small sensory bin and this is my beloved jumbo sensory bin.

As I usually do when introducing an open-ended activity, I sort of just sat back and observed from the get-go.

Now he had spent the last few days helping Grae and I transplant seedlings into containers, but it was the sweetest thing to watch him carefully fill his pot with soil and then stick a flower in the centre.

Before long, Miss G joined in.  I’m always more than happy to let her enjoy activities I’ve set up with Sam in mind, but I do sometimes like him to get a stab at it first – before seeing how his big sister would interact with the materials.

Now I don’t know whose idea it was, but once Grae joined in it wasn’t very long before one of our pump pressure water sprayers came into play.  {Side note: I looove these for gardening with kids as I feel like they make it hard to over water or hurt the seedling with a flow that’s too strong.} 

Of course once the water came into play, a whole lot of drinking and showering came along with it – hah!

Just for fun, let’s take a look at the last time I did a gardening sensory bin for Miss G, shall we?  This was back in October of 2014 {so Grae was just over 4 years old} in the courtyard of our apartments in Kuwait.  I took the photos for the purpose of sharing them here on the site, but never got around to it {#storyofmylife}.  Her bin was similar, but included the CUTEST white picket fence and tiny wooden ladybugs.  Also, those lilacs?  Beautiful.  {Still sad that I had to leave so many fun things behind when we moved home.}

Aw, my sweet baby girl!!

You can also see another gardening sensory bin we did when Miss G was just a year old here.  My gosh – the concentration and determination in that video just kills me!

 

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