Zoo Sensory Bin

 THE ZOO

I have made up this sensory bin for our zoo unit:

The bin consists of pea gravel (much cheaper if you buy a big bag from a home improvement store than to buy pebbles from a craft store), larger decorative stones, Spanish moss, greenery, a water "bath", plastic animals, fence from a John Deere farm set.  I'll give them digging and transferring tools, magnifying glasses, and animals cards to match with (Target $spot has some cute animal action and sound cards right now) .  I bought almost everything except for fence and gravel from the Dollar Tree.

Will be starting our zoo unit this week so check back to see the bin in action.

To see what other moms are doing visit 1+1+1=1

Spring Sensory Bin - Ducks and Bunnies and Eggs - Oh My!

We're so excited that spring is around the corner. (yes, here in the North it is still in the 30's - supposed to be 55 tomorrow though!). So we are celebrating spring for the entire month of April - with a different focus each week.

I just finished this months sensory bin (we will be changing some items each week)

The spring sensory bin (ducks and bunnies and eggs, oh my edition) includes:

                   Easter basket "grass"

                   Easter Egg Gel Clings (around all sides of bin)

                   Pastel "see through" plastic Easter eggs

                   "chocolate" plastic easter eggs

                   Multi-color spiny balls

                   Squeaky/squirter frogs and duck

                   Stuffed ducks/bunnies in varying sizes

                   Multi-color clips

Sensory Bin Activites

           Explore/ find the ?  (sight & touch)

           Play with gel clings (touch, motor skills)

            Put the ? color clip on the ducks ?  (Color and body part recognition, fine motor skills)                  

            Color Matching, Fine Motor Skills, sound, & taste:
                  Open and close eggs,
                  Match spiny ball color to egg color and put in.
                  Some Chocolate eggs have M&M's, shake to figure out which ones have M&M's and eat!

               Some frogs squeak others have water in them - squeeze to find out which!

          Just for fun / just inevitable:  throw sparkly "grass" up in air to simulate "April Showers".

We'll be changing it up a bit each week  as we will be doing insects & rainbows, and planting and gardening weeks.

Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas for the weeks coming up.

Thanks

Kerry