Sensory bins have gained considerable popularity in early childhood classrooms, and with good reason.  Sensory bins are full of activities and materials for tactile exploration that promote sensory play, which builds on children’s natural curiosity, and supports development of cognitive, language, and motor skills. 

What Is a Sensory Bin? Why Is It Important to Early Learning?  

A preschool sensory bin is any container that is filled with materials that are tactile in nature, (e.g., rice, water beads, sand, pasta, beans, cotton balls, or even natural materials that are safe for children to touch (i.e., pinecones, pebbles, crumpled paper). Sensory bins can provide stimulation for all of the senses (e.g., touch, hear, sight, and/or smell). There are a few reasons that sensory bins are beneficial for preschool children, including: 

• Stimulates neural growth: When a child plays in a sensory bin with materials that are stimulating their learning, they are developing a new pathway in their brain—and with it, a level of neurodevelopment that supports cognitive growth, as well as focused, and flexible thinking. 

• Stimulates fine motor skills: It is helpful to remember that the actions of squishing, stacking, pouring, sorting, and exploring the materials in the sensory bin develops the hand strength and precision that will be needed for writing, buttoning clothing and self-feeding to name a few. Invigorating language: As children describe the qualities of what they are feeling (“soft”, “smooth”, “rough”), as children compare objects, and share what they are doing to describe their actions, they are developing vocabulary and skills for expressive language. 

• Invigorating social skills: Children, by nature, are social beings and sensory bins provide children with a chance to work together, take turns, and endorse their play with some negotiation or engage in discovery with a partner or small group. 

• Ability to self-regulate: Many types of sensory interactions support a child’s ability to self-regulate their emotional state and show a calmness when delaying or engaging in a repetitive action for example stirring, pouring, sifting, etc).

Sensory Bin Ideas for Hands-on Learning for Preschoolers

1. Rainbow Rice Bin

Fill a bin with colored rice, hide small objects (buttons, beads, shapes). Encourage children to locate the small objects and then provide the children with scoops or funnels, and empty egg cartons for sorting in the bin.

Learning Outcomes: Touch, sorting, identifying colors, fine motor skills.

2. Water Beads Bin

Fill a smaller bin with water beads. Provide different containers (cups and strainers) for the children to manipulate. Use descriptive language to discuss wet, soft, bounce. 

Learning Outcomes: Sensory development, estimating amount of water beads, have the children verbalize what they are feeling.

3. Shape Hunt Sand Bin

Fill a bin with play sand and hide foam shapes in the container. Then invite the children to dig in the sand and uncover the shapes! Once they have uncovered the shapes, sort the foam shapes and compare sizes. 

Learning Outcomes: Cognitive maths concepts, descriptive language and problem-solving.

4. Pasta Bin

You will need to provide dry pasta of various shapes, sizes, and colors and set it up with scoops, bowls and spoons to allow for scooping, pouring, measuring and developing patterning. 

Learning Outcomes: Sorting, prediction, counting and hand strength.

5. Nature Finds Bin 

Look for different natural finds outside and put them in the bin for children to explore. For example: pinecones, leaves, small rocks, sticks, etc. After exploring let children sort, find, and group items with various descriptors. 

Learning Benefits: Environmental awareness, scientific thinking, tactile discrimination.

6. Mystery Texture Bin 

Blindfolding children and having them guess or describe various materials found in the bin. For example: stones, sponges, cotton balls, rubber bands, etc. 

Learning Benefits: Vocabulary, prediction, sensory awareness, and memory.

7. Sound-and-Touch Bin 

Put items in the bin that make noise (beads, small bells, beans, etc.) and allow children to listen to the objects and feel them. Also, provide experiences for children to listen for the sounds of the object or “hunt” for as well as listen for something in the bin. 

Learning Benefits: Auditory and tactile discrimination, attention and focus, and logical thinking. 

8. Water Exploration Bin 

Fill the bin with cups, boats, and toys for waterproofing. Children can pour, float, and sink items. 

Learning Benefits: Cause and effect, scientific exploration (sink and float), beginning math concepts related to volume. 

9. Letter Discovery Bin 

Use rice/sand to bury foam/plastic letters; then, children can search through rice/sand for letters and/or make their name!

Learning Outcomes: Basic literacy introduction, basic alphabet knowledge, basic writing skills. 

10. Scented sensory bin

Basically a bin of dried herbs, citrus peels, potpourri, cotton balls… Children are able to touch, smell, identify, and match descriptions to the smells.

Learning Outcome: multi-sensory integration, descriptive language, sensory discrimination.

Making Use of Sensory Materials to Capitalize on Preschool Touch Learning and Social Skills

When you are planning preschool touch learning experiences/learning, it is useful to:

• Encourage the children to descriptively and clearly describe what they are feeling, seeing, and/or hearing.
• Children can be playing in pairs or small groups – this helps with sharing, negotiating, working on problems together.
• Ask open-ended questions about their experience (“What’s rough? What’s soft”) to extend children’s thinking or observations.

Sensory Play for Early Learning – Best Practices

• Change the materials regularly. children interact and work with different tools to help them develop their learning, and it also changes the season, topic, and feelings presented.
• Provide children with lots of unstructured time to explore for themselves; allow the playing to be the stimulus behind their own discoveries versus following a structured goal.
• Be highly aware of the children, protect toddlers and/or use small objects that have a choking hazard.
• Encourage children to also use the sensory bins to support other parts of the curriculum – counting, telling stories related to their exploration, making scientific predictions.

Preschool Creative Sensory Bins Ideas to Try

• Thematic sensory bins can use props too, like colored rice is grass, specific toys (FARM, OCEAN, GROCERY STORE).
• Rely on scent bins related to books or lessons from your class (nature story, alphabet hunt, healthy foods grocery store, etc).
• Allow the children to have a part in making the bin – they can choose their fillers, select mystery objects, and add objects they created for their exploration. 
• Be ready to get messy! Set clear boundaries to be safe, then allow the children to explore the bins or materials. Children will take risks and demonstrate persistence when you respect your boundaries!

Benefits of Sensory Bins – It’s Science!

Ongoing research continues to show that toddlers and preschoolers that have access to sensory bins will:

• Form more neural pathways for fine motor development, math development, language development, and social-emotional development. The children also show better focus and attention spans and learn to self-soothe.
• Are better creative thinkers and can display patience, and accept challenges.
• Support all types of learners: – visual, auditory, tactile or collective, from each modality.

Conclusion

Sensory bins appear to just be play, but preschool sensory play is much more than play! Sensory experiences are deliberate and science-based opportunities for real learning. Intentional sensory play, thoughtful/appropriate materials, and focused conversation will support another skill- language development, early math development, creative thinking, and social aspect of growth. These initial ideas above will help you see skills, language, attention, and confidence develop- with each scoop, pour and giggle.