Fall is here! Which means I get to put together one of my most favorite sensory bins of the year.  Who can resist the smell of apple cinnamon and pine cones mixed with the texture of corn kernels, right!?

Every year I try to add in components that align with the developmental stage my daughter is in.  Being almost 3, she is refining her fine and visual motor skills every day, so we added in lots of fine motor challenges and visual perceptual options this year. Toddlers also seek independence in everything they do, so sensory bins are always a great task to get them involved when putting it together.

Sensory Bin Materials

First, we gathered all of our goodies.  For this bin, we are using corn kernels, play apples, pine cones, flat marbles, and play leaves as our main “ingredients”.  You can control the amount of scent you include in your bin by sprinkling apple pie spice, or adding cinnamon sticks.  My daughter does not have any aversions to scent, so we went with pre-scented apples and pine cones (you can often find these in the fall section of your local craft store!).

Next, I had her scoop and pour the corn kernels into her bin, and add in all of the goodies.  I let her play for a while and explore the different scents and textures.  She loves to explore using kitchen utensils (spoons, bowls, funnels, cups, etc) – she made our whole family some apple soup with a side of leaves and pine cones for dinner!  All of this is working on their imagination skills which is fantastic for this age.

Then, the fun begins for me! Here are some fun challenges I incorporated into our purposeful play!

Fine Motor

Corn kernels are awesome because when a toddler plays with it, they are naturally practicing their pincer skills just picking them up and moving them around!  I also love to incorporate various tongs, tweezers, and clothespins for her to use while she picks up apples or “catches” leaves.

Visual Motor

Sorting tasks are always a big hit.  I had her sort out red apples, green apples, yellow leaves, and green leaves.  You can also work on patterning or visual model copying.  For my daughter, I lined up a couple objects (red apple, green leaf, pine cone) and had her find the matching objects in the bin and line them up in the same order.

Stereognosis

This is a high-level perceptual skill that I love to throw in when planning activities.  Stereognosis is the ability to perceive an object from touch – sensory bins are perfect for this because you can hide a pine cone underneath the corn kernels, have them dig in, and see if they can find the pine cone only by touch. I can’t tell you how intrinsically motivating and fun this is for them, all while working on some amazing developmental skills.

The thing I really love about sensory bins is that they are easily adaptable to any age group.  If your little one is younger, try adding the corn kernels to a clear bottle with some leaves and pom poms and have them roll it all around.  Watch them in awe as they see the goodies move all around inside the bottle and hear the sounds of the kernels as they slide!

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Summer STEM

School is out for the summer - the days are long, daily schedules are relaxed, and parents everywhere are struggling to find activities to keep their kids engaged and entertained! We’ve lived all over the country, so summers have ranged from gorgeously warm to brutally hot and humid. Depending on your climate, this time of year means you are either trying to soak up the sun or escape the crazy heat. Well, today I am sharing one of our favorite STEM activities that can be enjoyed both indoors and out.

I frequently try to provide my daughters with activities that are open-ended. This means that there isn’t really a “beginning” and “end” to the play. There are no desired results and they have the freedom to be as creative as they would like. My girls have always enjoyed various forms of pretend play - usually acting out an occupation or activity that they observe from us, a book, or a show.

Gears Garden Building

I decided to create a fun Summer Garden set up in our living room on an overcast morning using our Gears, Gears, Gears! sets. My youngest can get a little frustrated with the base tiles, so the three of us arranged them together. After that, the girls were free to build the garden of their dreams!

I love these gears because the possibilities are endless. They have been one of the best ways to encourage free play involving STEM. Mainly because they make a great independent quiet time activity. It’s awesome to watch my daughters’ minds work as they try to figure out how to make the entire board of gears and their “flowers” rotate and spin.

Once they felt that their garden was complete, the sun had come out and I moved their garden to a table on our deck. I added in buckets of water, a watering can, small animals and fairies. Adding in the pretend play elements was a huge success and they especially loved getting to water their garden. The gears are great because we can easily use them both indoors and outdoors - to include water play! This activity ended up being a huge success and occupied them for over two hours. We will definitely be adding it into our summer “boredom busters” rotation for the rest of this year.

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