It's almost spring! However, living in Florida, it's felt like spring has been here for a few weeks already. Enough so, that I have already opened up my my spring storage box full of books and activities. If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that over the past year I have been using sensory bins with my students to reach so many goals. I wanted to share with you a fun and inexpensive sensory bin that I used this past week!
One thing I love about sensory bins is that they don't have to be expensive to be functional. I got the base of my bin for $1.00. I chose to use the shredded paper grass that is typically used for easter baskets. What says "spring" more than green grass?! Some other ideas that come to mind are: rice or pasta died green, black beans to look like dirt, green yarn or cut up smoothie straws!
Next I went to my favorite place, the Target's dollar spot, to find fun spring fillers!
Right now they have adorable felt flowers and food boxes. My friend Rachael from Texas Speech Mom has created some fun activities to use with these flower boxes. I love when I can repurpose anything to be used in more than one way, so I happily purchased these!
While there, I also found squishy, stretchy caterpillars! These have been a huge hit with my kids. I immediately thought about using the food boxes with the caterpillars and using it while reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle!
These bins have been so much fun to use. I have used them as companions to stories we have read but also just used them for structured play activities. Sensory bins are fun to use while trying to obtain language samples because they really can elicit so much language (requesting, describing, sequencing, pretend play, etc)
