Saturday, September 12, 2015

Sensory Bins: Keeping em Simple!

If Pinterest pictures of gorgeous, themed sensory bins make you nervous, you needn't worry at all! You DON'T have to color grains and DON'T have to bother with themes! You can keep it simple and it will still work wonders. In fact the Practical Mom logic is that the children's enthusiasm is inversely proportional to the amount of effort you take to build the activity! Yeah! the more intricate and the more attention to detail--ed it is, the least interested they are going to get! So keep the effort to the minimum for the set up and maximum for clean ups! Big clean ups are usually good cuz they mean the activities worked! 


The Practical Mom: Sensory Bins: Keeping em Simple!


A sensory bin (or a box, or a basket) comprises of a base (such as colored rice, beans, marbles, stones, sand, pebbles, rocks, grass, tinsel, beads, cotton balls etc) and additions (such as magnets, erasers, cars, diggers, feathers, toys, etc). They may be themed (color, Christmas, Independence Day, zoo, aquarium, garden, birthday, etc). It is a means to engage and calm a child's mind with his senses : tactile (touch), vestibular (movement and balance), proprioception (body awareness), auditory (sound), visual (sight), olfactory (smell).



They are an absolute MUST in our house. For how it is beneficial, and how I made and rotated bins you can visit this earlier post of mine. Eventually after a year of using bins, I concluded the 2 *most* popular items for bins:

1. The #1 base: my son's absolutely fave *and* popular amongst kids who came over to play was, coffee beans! They are fantastic, providing both texture and smell *and* they seemed to last foreva! 

2. The #1 addition: my son's absolutely fave *and* popular amongst kids who came over to play, was a kitchen set! Yeah, girls, boys, kids aged 3,4,...6,8,9. They all love pouring beans into pots & pans and making pretend coffee!

So much so that I didn't even bother refilling the bin for months! 

So there you go! Just buy coffee beans and a few kitchen Items in a bin and that'll guarantee hours of peace & quiet!


The Practical Mom: Sensory Bins: Keeping em Simple!


I had to discard all my ziploc-ed bags containing various coloured grains and beans when we moved countries. In Chile however, I *did* actually find a kitchen set that didn't scream "this is for girls!! Underlined! bold! italics! Pink!" So thank God for that. 

(Sigh, Pink. The feminist in me avoided that color like plaque for most of my life, and when I got a bit comfortable with it, I had to avoid it cuz I have a son! Sigh! Did you know that if a man wears pink in Chile, its automatically assumed he's gay?)

The Practical Mom: Sensory Bins: Keeping em Simple!


So I bought two small see through bins, one bag of purple aquarium rocks and one bag of glass pebbles. For fillers, I got thermocol shapes, a cool kitchen set, and a cool jiggly jelly fruit set. He used both bins together , no rules. 

The Practical Mom: Sensory Bins: Keeping em Simple!

The Practical Mom: Sensory Bins: Keeping em Simple!

The Practical Mom: Sensory Bins: Keeping em Simple!


It worked like magic! The first month was literally moving from one house to another hotel several times over till we finally moved to our new place. So these bins did relax him and keep him busy in hotel rooms when all I wanted to do was watch E! online (The guilty pleasure I *sorely* missed in the last two years!!) 

The Practical Mom: Sensory Bins: Keeping em Simple!


Until later! Stay in touch!



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23 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for always sharing such great crafts on our Bowdabra Saturday Crafty Showcase. These are great ideas for creating with your kids. Just an fyi, We have a website called Crafters 4 kids ( c4k555.org ) and I would love to share your ideas there once it is back to where we can add to projects.

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    1. Thanks for stopping by, will check that website soon:)

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  2. I love this. We often indulge in some nice and simple sensory bins and have the most fun!

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  3. Love the styrofoam! I would think this would be like glitter though...did it get all over?

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  4. I wish we'd done treasure baskets for N when he was a baby. Instead we just used the ones at children's centres we went to. But he loved things like pine cones, ribbon and leaves.

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    1. my kid used to stand up and rummage through drawers for hours...each drawer was a treasure drawer! my nanny (I had a nanny then) used to sit with him and keep a watch. *ANYTHING* safe is interesting for kids !

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  5. I love the idea of using coffee beans!! Thanks for sharing at A Round Tuit. Hope you have a lovely week!

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  6. In my classroom I always have a seasonal sensory bin happening. The kids love it. I love finding the items for it too. Great ideas here and glad you share with us on Tuesday Talk today.

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  7. What is "thermocol" is that Styrofoam? I love your coffee bean idea - my house would smell SOOOOOO good!

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    1. Yes! Styrofoam! And coffee beans DO smell delicious !

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  8. Nice article, the little ones always love to explore and your sensory bins are a great idea. Thank you for sharing with the Clever Chicks Blog Hop! I hope you’ll join us again next week!

    Cheers,
    Kathy Shea Mormino
    The Chicken Chick
    http://www.The-Chicken-Chick.com

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  9. I love the idea of sensory bin. My daughter loves exploring kinetic sand and kitchen utensils. When I asked if she is enjoying playing ...she very seriously said - I am not playing, I am working like you do in your kitchen!

    PS: Heard about the Chile earthquake, I hope this message finds you and family well.

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    1. Thanks so much for asking! we are fine, thanks for strict adherence to building construction codes :)

      My lil kid loves helping in the kitchen too! doing 'real' work!

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  10. There are so many great ideas in this post. Thanks for simplifying the idea of sensory bins- I really feel inspired to go out and create my own RIGHT NOW. I think using coffee beans is a great idea, and as a great bonus, would make your house smell amazing. :)

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  11. thanks for sharing this on Dream Create and Inspire.. very interesting post
    Maria

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  12. Thank you for sharing at the Thursday Favorite Things blog hop

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  13. Sensory bins are great for kids! I love them in the children's cookware! Thanks for sharing with SYC.
    hugs,
    Jann

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