Sensory Tub Fun

ROCK SENSORY TUB

Today I made some sensory bins for my 2 year old.  I have been looking at all kinds of them on pinterest so I decided to make my own but adapt them to suit the needs of a two year old.  This bin is filled with small stones. I added some blue glass stones, pink rocks and larger black stones.  Eventually I will use these different types of stones for sorting. I wrote my son's name on a couple of the larger black stones. Then I wrote each letter of the alphabet on the small white stones with the upper case on one side and the lower case on the other side.  We also put some words that he can read on the rocks and added numbers so he can learn his numbers.  We made dice dots on some of them too.  I hid various things in the rocks but he is mostly just interested in dumping the rocks into buckets and dump trucks!  


This activity is great as it held my son's attention span for a VERY long time!!  It was the perfect activity for him since it's too cold to go to the beach.  I like the educational components to it.  Next time we will count, sort, do an alphabet hunt, and look for various colours of items.

MACARONI SENSORY TUB

The second bin we tried was with macaroni.  It was a little bit too full. I would recommend only filling the bin 1/4 to 1/2 full.  Had I known how messy it was going to be, I would not have bought any macaroni for a 2 year old!  My kitchen is literally covered in noodles. They are easy to sweep up but if you are a neat freak, don't bother trying it!  The part I do like about the macaroni is that you can easily slide your hands into it so you get the true sensory part of the sensory bin.  My son and I love to bury our hands in it.    I hid a bunch of his toys in there, along with some dice and other craft materials. I gave him a rake but I would recommend that for when he is older as he does not have good control of it and flings macaroni everywhere!


As I type this blog, my son has been happily playing with these 2 bins for over 2 hours and is still enjoying himself.


This was a great investment for an activity and all it took was a trip to the dollar store!