From the moment your child is born, he or she is constantly using all five senses to explore and make sense of their surroundings. Sensory development enhances the use of your child’s senses by incorporating different colors, textures, noises, and more into their early education. This holistic learning process encourages children to play safely and engage with their surroundings as well as improve their brain development. From cooing family members to bustling coffee houses, babies and young children are frequently exposed to a variety of different people and environments.
For a young child, all the unfamiliar sights smell, and sounds can be overwhelming. Maybe even a little bit scary! That’s why it’s really important to incorporate sensory play into your child’s everyday routine to help them adapt to real-life situations and cope with changes in their environment. More importantly, teach your child how to enjoy their surroundings. Click here to get more information about sensory development.
What Are Sensory Bins?
Sensory bins for toddlers are of various kinds but they are all essentially bins filled with a range of things that are different in shape, size, colour, texture, etc. with which toddlers can play, grow and discover. These are great in way where there are bins available that allow children to play with their siblings, friends, and even their parents. The big advantage of these bins is that it is easy to change the composition of the bins. You can choose to put anything from your day-to-day life as well. These things can be all different in one aspect or the other or they can be the same texture but different things, just to get your toddler acquainted with new feelings and experiences.
Benefits of Sensory Bins?
Cognitive Development :-
Sensory bins help kids empty and fill the bins, which imitate a hide and seek kind of play. This is important for their development. Putting number and letter shapes into the sensory bin can provide children the opportunity to learn the alphabet, their numbers and gain practice with counting and spelling.
Calming Activity :-
Sensory bins can provide a quiet activity to help children calm down and play independently.
Improve Fine Motor Skills:-
Sensory bins can increase hand strength as children stir, scoop, dig and pour. You can include tweezers, spoons, and funnels to encourage tool use and develop grasp patterns needed for handwriting and managing feeding utensils.
Sensory Exploration :-
This is probably the most important benefit that comes out of sensory bins. The bins give the chance for toddlers to explore and understand different kinds of senses, namely, touch, seeing different colours, shapes, and textures, sounds that they produce, their taste and smell. It is a very important trait to develop and the earlier it is, the better it is for your little one!
How to make sensory bins?
Step 1: Choose Your Sensory Bin Container
Essentially, a sensory bin is a tub filled with items that stimulate a young child’s senses, particularly the sense of touch.
A sensory bin can be as simple as a tub of uncooked rice with a cup and funnel or as elaborate as a dinosaur world with sand, mud, palm trees, dinosaur figurines, and a DIY volcano that explodes. Or you can take a simple zip lock bag instead.
Step 2: Choose Your Sensory Bin Filler
Fill your sensory bin with something that is fun to play with and stimulates the senses. We use oatmeal.
Fillers can be edible or non-edible. The creative ideas are endless, but here are some ideas to get you started.
- Rice
- Beans
- Salt
- Lentils
- Coffee beans
- Oats
- Popcorn
- Leaves
- Coconut husk
- Pebbles
- Ice
- Water
- Bubbles
- Cooked pasta
- Jello
- Whipped cream
- Snow
- Cooked beans
- Cotton
- Nuts
- Hay
- Cream
- Boiled potato
- Mustard seeds
- Acorns
Sensory bins are definitely a great way to keep your kids occupied but also to get them to learn a lot. As adults, we often underestimate the power of learning that a toddler’s mind can accomplish. Since they are growing, they are much more impressionable than we’d like to believe. We hope that these ideas that we have provided will help you to make your own sensory corner in the house with a bunch of stuff that your toddler can play with and experience.
Baincells has 120+ Activities to stimulate the development of the sensory, right brain, physical, and much more, click on the link below to know more about it.