Check out this Spring Weather Sensory Bin! This is one of two bins I put together for our spring theme. In the coming weeks our themes will be bugs, plants, flowers, fruits, and veggies and it will all come together for him. Take a look at our messy Spring Weather Water Beads Sensory Bin too.
Materials & Manipulatives
The base of this sensory bin is blue dyed rice. Rice is one of the easiest things to color and one of Liam’s favorite things to play with. I added umbrella charms, which I randomly purchased at a yard sale (yes, I bought them with this bin in mind). I found acrylic chandelier tear drops at a craft store to mimic rain drops. The small rainbow erasers are part of our St. Patrick’s Day erasers I found at Party City. Liam found these huge sparkly pom poms at a craft store, which are perfect storm clouds. The gold glitter pipe cleaners were found at the Dollar Tree but any craft store/section would have these.
If you look at the photo above, you’ll also see a few big things. The thunder tube and the mini plasma ball were gifts, but Amazon sells them both. These two things did not stay in the bin while Liam played. The thermometer, tornado tube, and the rain gauge/weather vane did stay in. The weather vane was purchased at a museum but you can find it on Amazon as well Little Labs Weather Science Kit.
How We Played & Learned
I was able to incorporate fine motor, oral motor, math concepts, and science concepts into this sensory bin. My favorite sensory bins are multi-functional ones like this. Liam is a sponge for information if it can be hands-on and it helps that he’s obsessed with weather.
After I read a few short National Geographic books on stormy weather, I let him dig in. He laced the umbrella charms and the chandelier rain drops on the lightening pipe cleaners. For about 5 seconds he put the umbrellas and rainbows in patterns and we used these charms to do simple math. I gave him a straw to blow the weather vane around and we talked about rain gauges and why rain measurements matter (floods…we also read a story on those). We recapped what lightning and thunder is, how to “calculate” how close a storm is, and safety precautions during severe weather. He the meaning of precipitation, and rain’s relation to snow.