Easter and the hope of Spring have been on our minds lately and have been the inspiration for some fun and colourful sensory bins. I’ve been trying to add opportunities for learning when possible, while also encouraging a no-pressure environment so that neither of us get discouraged! Refillable plastic eggs have had many uses in our home over the past couple of weeks – the kids love putting ‘treasures’ inside and hiding them for each other, so including them in a new sensory bin was a no brainer!
The base of today’s bin is rainbow rice that was made several months ago. For this particular batch we used neon food colouring for the bright spring colours and it can be stored in an airtight bag or container to be used again and again (as long as it doesn’t get wet!). You’ve heard me rave about dyed rice before – and if you haven’t tried making it for yourself, it’s definitely a sensory base staple! Its super easy to do and you can include the kids as well. Check out the posts HERE and HERE for more info.
These wooden letters were an absolute SCORE from our local dollar store (Dollarama if you’re looking) – they’re quite thick and come with 5 of each letter plus a few symbols. There’s a number set that I grabbed as well, but they will pair great with any DRY sensory bins. I know these letters will come in handy for not only sensory, but any activities to encourage learning for this age group (my oldest is currently in Kindergarten) – they’d also be great to paint or use as craft supplies!
Inside each of the plastic refillable eggs I wrote a couple of simple words (including her name), and hid the corresponding wood letters within the rice. Since this was the first time with this activity, I only put the letters needed for her particular words. You could easily increase difficulty by adding more letters as ‘distractions’ as your kids advance!
One of the great things about this activity is that you could change the task slightly in several different ways – write single letters on the papers for early letter recognition, and increase difficulty of sight words for kids learning to read! It could also be fun for older kids and practising spelling/vocab words.
While this particular activity was targeted to my five year old, my 2 year old was happy to get into the fun as well! They ended up filling the eggs with rice to make shakers, re-hiding, burying and stacking the letters, and repeatedly scooping the rice. While younger kiddos may not be ready to learn and name letters, exposing toddlers to letters gives them the opportunity to be curious – and have fun while doing it!
Happy hunting!
Teela
Night Owl Mommy 