Oats and Gems, and Trucks, oh my!! A Week of Sensory Bins, Day 1!

One of Cocoa Puff's favorite activities are our "sensory" bins. I also call them activity bins. I've made them for multiple occasions and holidays. Originally, I had made a bunch of them for Froot Loop, but his tactile sensory issues made it so that he would barely even touch most of the sensory bins, much less actually enjoy playing with it. Soooooo, I put some of them away and brought them out for Cocoa Puff when he was about 18 months old. He still plays with them at 3 years old, so I've made a few more. Here is one of his recent favorites: a rainbow-dyed oatmeal sensory bin with glass gems, marbles, and plastic coins. 

This bin is very simple, and yet it has provided hours upon hours of fun. The main base is Rolled Oats that have been dyed with vinegar and Pastel Food Coloring. I'll provide a more detailed, tailored tutorial someday, but the process is similar to making Vinegar Dyed Rice (click on it to view the tutorial).

I like using these Plastic 16 quart "Sweater boxes" for the sensory bins. They're a good size for solo play (or maybe brother & brother play if they're actually fairly in control of themselves for once) and they contain most of the ingredients during "normal play". Note that "normal play" is NOT throwing or dumping the contents purprosefully out of the bin.... Thanks, kids...

The lids snap on well and they stack! Plus, they don't take up a ton of room. 

Once all the oats were in, I added Glass Pebbles/Vase Filler, Glass Marbles, and Plastic Coins. This gave a nice variety of textures and shapes to play with. 

Cocoa Puff also decided to throw a few Jumpy Frog Toys, which was a pretty nice touch, actually! 

Not shown because I didn't get any photos of it due to having to constantly redirect and supervise, this Mixing and Measuring Set for Kids  was PERFECT for this bin. He loved filling the measuring spoons with oats or gemstones and then dumping them into the cups. I highly, highly recommend this set for any kid. 

Another thing he loved doing was digging out all of the coins and putting them in a bowl next to the bin. I thought he would find this boring after a few minutes, but no... he was determined to find every single one! I was pretty impressed at his concentration. 

Most recently, he added his set of CAT trucks to the oats, left the coins out, and spent all day playing "Construction Trucks." I tried to join in and play with him, but apparently Mama doesn't know how to "excavator correctly" so I got banned from the construction site. The flying dump truck was also frowned upon; however, the tickle truck was a huge hit! 

All in all, this is such a fun sensory bin. I'm very pleased he still loves to play with it at 3 years old and it gave me at least a full hour to get some good quality work done! Maybe one of these days, I'll learn how to excavator correctly! 

Some of my other sensory activities can be found below. Enjoy! 

Rainbow/St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bin

Colorful Sensory Bottles

Magnetic Sensory Jar

Easy Sensory Box for Babies and Toddlers

Do you know how to "excavator" correctly? Is there hope for me?!