Tag Archives: sensory bin

Gardening Sensory Bin

With today’s gorgeous weather and all of the fun Miss G had with yesterday’s sensory box, I decided to pull together another one this afternoon.

Gracen helped us plant our first ever garden this year and really loves checking in on it. She smells the flowers, strokes the leaves, and plucks out things that don’t belong, but she can’t do much more than that without disturbing the plants. So today I decided to give her a little “garden” of her own in the shape of a gardening sensory bin.

We headed to the garage and collected a few items, all of which we already had on hand.  We started with a good amount of soil, then added some eco-pots, herb and strawberry tags, gardening tools, and a couple of pinwheels (Grae’s favourite part of our current garden).  Grae’s contribution? A little fistful of rocks.

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Let me tell you, this sensory box was a HUGE hit.  Without a word of a lie, she played with it for nearly two hours.  She was so into it that I even got to lay on the grass and catch up with emails on my phone for a few minutes.  She filled pot after pot of dirt and I was hugely impressed by her ability to get heaping scoops of soil into her pots without spilling much.  My favourite thing was that in between scoops, she would tap the excess dirt off her shovel by tapping it on the side of the container like I’ve taught her to do when we cook.  When she’d filled a pot, she’d pat down the dirt with her hand and then top it with a cluster of plant tags or a pinwheel.

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She also quite liked finding clumps of soil and breaking them up with her fingers.

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Of course we eventually reached the point where she decided it was time to get in the sensory bin.  I mean which sensory bin isn’t better when seated inside?

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What she wasn’t overly impressed with, however, was having dirty feet.  After meticulously brushing them off, she carefully climbed out and stayed out for the rest of the afternoon.

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Here’s a little video of serious sensory box play in action:

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Water Sensory Bin

I love the fact that we have a little solarium out back.  Unfortunately though, for us, it’s not just a place to grow pretty plants and relax…  It’s our laundry room, shoe closet, tricycle riding corral, and recycling depot, all in one.  And today it became a play room on top of all of that.

I’ve been squirrelling away little things for some sensory bins I’ve wanted to put together for Miss G for a while now, and today Gracen and I finally found bins that are the perfect shape and size.  As soon as we got home, we gathered our materials for a super simple water sensory bin, changed Miss G into a bathing suit, and headed out into the solarium for some fun.

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We laid a blanket down first to minimize potential flooding and slipping, filled the bin halfway full of water, added a couple of drops of blue food colouring just for fun, and plunked in Grae’s collection of shells, rocks, and driftwood.

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She was a little unsure of what she should do at first…

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But in a couple minutes time, she realized that this was going to  be fun!

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Naturally, all of the ocean items came out of the water and were put onto the blanket.

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Then she used a strainer to help her “wash” her treasures.

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And before long, she was gathering her own items and adding them to the bin.

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But her favourite thing?  Putting things into cups and then dumping them into the water.

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She liked doing this so much that she began retrieving containers from the recycling bin to fill up.

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Inevitably, this happened…

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And this…

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And this. (She’s kissing the water.)

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And by the time we were through, her hands were freezing cold, her suit was dripping wet, and our ocean bin had gained several new items.

Here’s a little video…

♥