Sensory bins are a great tool for keeping small hands busy. As little ones are making discoveries with their senses, they are building language and vocabulary, strengthening fine motor control, developing hand-eye coordination and practicing academic skills. From sunshine to snow and everything in between, these weather sensory bins allow for creative play, while inspiring tiny hands to learn more about the weather and changing seasons. To get started, grab the free weather sensory bin response sheets here!
To represent the blue sky, fill the bottom of a clear tub with blue sand. Add some weather elements, including pom pom clouds, crystal raindrops, pipe cleaner lightning bolts, snowflake jewels, mini rainbows and suns. All of these items provide different textures for little hands, as they explore the weather around them!
Idea by: Ashley Sharp of One Sharp Bunch
This cloudy sensory bin is the simplest to create. Keep the bottom of the clear tub filled with blue sand. Toss in some white pom poms in various sizes. Then, let your little learners practice sorting the clouds by size. Use tweezers to add in fine motor practice. Grab the free sorting mat here!
Idea by: Ashley Sharp of One Sharp Bunch
There is a storm brewing! Just add some clouds, raindrops and lightning bolts to create this stormy sensory bin. Let your little ones mix up a storm inside a stew pot with a wooden spoon. Plus, they can practice counting with the free recipe cards!
Idea by: Ashley Sharp of One Sharp Bunch
Turn your stormy sensory bin into a rainy day sensory bin by including some umbrellas. The numbered cards can be used to practice number identification. Just choose an umbrella and find the matching number on the free "Rainy Numbers" sheet. Your little ones might also enjoy this "Down Comes the Rain" experiment.
Idea by: Ashley Sharp of One Sharp Bunch
Practice letter identification with this snowy sensory bin. Use the same blue sand, along with pom pom snowballs and snowflake jewels. Write a letter on each table tennis snowball and place it upside down in the sensory bin. Have your little learners pick a snowball and color the matching snowball on the "Snowy Letters" sheet.
Idea by: Ashley Sharp of One Sharp Bunch
Create this simple sunny sensory bin using clouds and suns. Turn it into a "Sunny Sight Words" sensory bin by writing a sight word on each sun. Grab the free response sheet to begin practicing sight word recognition. See more sensory bin ideas here!
Idea by: Ashley Sharp of One Sharp Bunch
