sensory bin Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Let’s Explore Shapes Worksheets and Shape Sensory Bowl

May 30, 2017 By Deirdre

This week we are exploring shapes. Earlier in the week I shared a shape sensory bottle and set of recording printables. Today I have a set of printables I am calling Let’s Explore Shapes worksheets. You can use them with a shape sensory bowl.

Using the Let’s Explore Shapes Worksheets

Getting Ready

The first thing you will need to do is print out the Let’s Explore Shapes worksheets. While we printed them out in color, you could print them out in black and white.

The next thing you will need to do is gather the supplies needed for the sensory bowl. We used the following items in our plastic tub:

The link below is an affiliate link.

Big Bag of Shape Buttons (We found ours at a big box craft store.)
Pinto Beans

Let’s Explore Shapes Worksheets Activities

Sorting

The Let’s Explore Shapes worksheets set includes a shape sorting printable. Your children can reach into the sensory bin and pull out a handful of shapes to sort on the sorting mat. They could search through the bin for one shape at a time instead if you like.

Clue Cards

There are several clue cards in the set. You can stack the clue cards beside the sensory bin and have them look for the shape each clue card is describing. If your children are not readers yet, you could read the clue cards to them.It will be up to you to decide if they need to find one of each shape or all of them.

Graphing the Shapes

Children can be invited to scoop a bunch of beans and shapes from the bin. Then they can separate the beans and the shapes. The beans can be put back in the tub. The shapes can be sorted out onto the graphing printable. Once they shapes are sorted, children can use crayons to coloring how many each shape they collected.

If you like these Let’s Explore Shapes worksheets, here are some others you will enjoy.

Building a Hermit Crab House Work Space

Hermit Crab Calendar Games

Bug Learning Pack

Recycling Bin Counting Activity

April Showers Printable Numbers

Frog Life Cycle Play Dough Printables

Counting Bees- LEGO Math Printable

Let’s Create a Floor Graph and Collect Data Spinner Activity

Kids Challenges- Digging Up and Sorting Construction Equipment

November 28, 2016 By Deirdre

This fun activity is filled with kids challenges. It features a construction site themed sensory bin. Your children will use the toys in the bin to dig up pictures that they will later sort. These kids challenges activities were created to go along with the book Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site (Hardcover Books for Toddlers, Preschool Books for Kids). After completing these kids challenges, your kids can try a digging into play dough activity we have also enjoyed.

Construction Site Kids Challenges

Getting the Sensory Bin Ready

Supplies

- Construction Equipment Sensory Cards
- Large plastic container or bin
- Birdseed (Birdseed can be used to feed birds after we have played with the bin.)
- Cat Construction 7″ Dump Truck, Loader & Excavator toys Combo Pack

Creating the Bin

After placing the birdseed into the bin, you will tuck the construction equipment cards into it . You may want to leave the edges of some of the cards sticking out. It will make it easier for your children to find them.

Then place the construction equipment on top on the birdseed. If you like, can place traffic cones or signs into the bin too.

Kids Challenges

Challenge One

The first challenge is to use get the equipment to dig up the cards. Try to encourage your children to not just pull the cards out of the birdseed with their hands.

Challenge Two

The second challenge is to sort the cards into piles. They will need to place all the equipment that is the same into a pile.

Challenge Three

The third and final challenge is to count how many of each piece of equipment they dug up. We arrange our cards into columns to count them.

CONSTRUCTION THEMED ACTIVITIES FOR PRESCHOOLERS

Digger Color Sort – My Storytime Corner

St. Patrick’s Day Activities: Leprechauns Never Lie Learning Fun

February 22, 2013 By Deirdre

Last week I shared the book Patrick’s Day with you along with several St. Patrick’s Day themed activities in a post called St. Patrick’s Day Activities- Part One. Today I wanted to share with you another wonderful St. Patrick’s Day themed book called Leprechauns Never Lie by Lorna and Lecia Balian.Wait you may be thinking! Haven’t you shared this book with us before. I have shared Leprechauns Never Lie before here and on the Book Chook two years ago. I thought it was worth another share with look here and I am also sharing it on the Kid’s Activities Blog. It is a really wonderful book. I just keeping wanting to share it.

Ninny Nanny lives with her Grandmother. Gran isn’t able to do much around the house and Ninny Nanny is lazy. She doesn’t like to fill the rain barrel with water, dig the potatoes, fix the wholes in the roof, or gather sticks for the fire.

Her solution to the growing list of chores is to find a leprechaun’s gold and have the chore issues go away. She accidentally trips over one while searching and catches him. He is supposed to give her his gold. He ends up getting her to do her chores and almost has to give his gold to her. Ninny Nanny ends up not believing the location he tells at the end of his ranting about its final location.

Leprechauns Never Lie is so much fun. JDaniel loved watching Ninny Nanny get tricked and I love the humor in the stories illustrations.

What did we do to explore the book Leprechauns Never Lie?

I put out a number of sensory activities for JDaniel that recreated the chores Ninny Nanny had to do in Leprechauns Never Lie.

Water Pouring

Ninny Nanny has to pour water from a bucket into a rain barrel. JDaniel got to pour water into all kinds of containers. Creating a Thatched Roof

I put out some gingerbread scented play dough, yellow straw segments, and a chopstick for this activity.

JDaniel and I both worked on drawing the house. It was a little harder than I thought it would be to draw the house in play dough.

When the pictures was done, he added the yellow straws to roof to create a thatched roof like effect.

Digging Up Potatoes

Last year I had JDaniel use the spoon and rake shown above to dig through beans to find shamrocks. This year I pulled out the same materials and added some new ones. I added a lot more beans and some rocks.

He had a great time placing the rock potatoes and shamrocks in the beans and digging them out. After he had dug out all of the shamrocks, he planted them in the beans in rows. He was so proud of getting them to balance and look like they were really growing up out of the beans.

Twig Transfer Activity

We have had a lot of branches fall from our beech trees this winter. JDaniel loves to gather them up and pile them near the bushes along the back of the house. We call it his “beaver dam”. I grabbed some his branches and broke them into tiny twigs.

JDanie was asked to move them from one bowl to the next. It was hard to hold the chopsticks tight enough to move the sticks, but he was able to do it.

How have you explored children’s books this week?

Disclaimer: Links in the post to Amazon are affiliate links.

Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin for Kids

February 11, 2013 By Deirdre

A Valentine’s Day sensory bin is a great time to explore and play with symbols of the holiday as well as fun red objects. I recently share the bin above with JDaniel and he had a great time exploring, learning with and, playing with its contents.

What did I put in it?

Valentine’s Day themed stencil
Heart shaped cookie cutters
Heart shaped doilies
Heart shaped sunglasses
Red funnels
Red and pink buttons
Ribbon
Heart shaped Straw
Heart shaped skewers
Red beans
Dice with hearts on them
Pink Spoon

While children just love to explore and create their own activities with sensory bins, I like to guide JDaniel just a little bit. After he had checked everything out and played with it for awhile, I suggested we try the activities below.

Sunglass Weaving

He simply wove a couple of strand of ribbon through the slats in the sunglasses. It was a great small motor skill and in took some concentration to do. He couldn’t see through them when he was done, but it was a fun activity.

Estimating Beans

How many beans did JDaniel think would fit into each cookie cutter? Did the same number of beans fill the large cookie cutter as they did the small one? In this case the large one did not get filled up by the same number of beans. It didn’t even fill one layer of beans.

Heart Skewer Shuffleboard

The heart shaped skewers made perfect shuffle board sticks. I had JDaniel test out whether the bean or the button made it farther when it was shuffled across the kitchen table. I think he added a little more force behind the that he wanted to win. He had picked the bean. Either way it was a fun activity.

Straw Blowing Activity

JDaniel also worked on blowing a button and a bean across the table with a straw. The skewers were much easier to use to get the bean and button moving. It took a lot of blowing to get the button across the table.

Funneling Buttons

Which buttons could be sent through the small funnel? Which ones went through the larger one? Really on the smallest buttons made it through the funnels. A few of the buttons got struck and we had to use the skewer to pop them back up through the top.

Slinky Measurements

JDaniel has the most fun with this plastic heart shaped slinky. He loved trying to get it to flop and and spring back up. I had him place it on the end of the sensory bin and count how many hearts across the bin was. That got him thinking about other things he could measure the length of. He ended up measuring chair, tables and even his bear. They were accurate measurements due to the fact that the slinky had to be stretched out to measure the length of some things, but it was great counting practice.

As I mentioned a sensory bin is mostly for exploring, but I did want to share with you six activities we did with the contents of this bin.

New Year’s Eve Sensory Bin

December 27, 2012 By Deirdre

With New Year’s Eve coming up next week I thought JDaniel would enjoy exploring some of the elements of a New Year’s Eve celebration. A quick visit to our local five and dime and a rummage through cabinets provided a variety of objects for JDaniel to explore.

I filled a turkey roasting pan with some of the following New Year’s Eve sensory bin objects:

paper horns
plastic cups wrapped in sparkly pipe cleaners
streamers
black eyed peas and various beans
red plastic spoon
funny glasses
a tracing tool in the shape of a clock
cookies cutters for the number 1-9

JDaniel had a grand time looking over each element in the New Year’s Eve sensory bin. He sorted through everything to see exactly what was in the bin and how much of each item there was. Then he put in everything, but the glasses back in to play with. JDaniel had too wear the glasses. I knew he would love them.

There isn’t a right or wrong way to explore the New Year’s Eve sensory bin. You can fill cups or horns with beans. You can make all kinds of noises with the horns. You can stretch, throw, or wrap the streamers! The goal is too just have fun.

With this bin I sat with JDaniel and talked over each of the objects and why I had put them in the bin. With some bins I just let JDaniel dig in and play. He has a grand time playing and learning while he works with the various items in the bin.

What kinds of learning can be explored using a this New Year’s Eve sensory bin?

Language

Letter formation- The beans can be formed into letters as can the other objects in the bin.

Oral Communication- Children can talk about what they are doing as they explore.

Storytelling- Children can make up a story using objects in the bin as props.

Vocabulary Development- Parents can introduce holiday related words like celebration, countdown, etc..

Math

Number Sequence- Children can line up the cookie cutters in the correct order.

Measuring Volume- Children can measures how many spoonfuls of beans can fill a cup.

Measuring Length- Children can measure the length of the streamers.

Counting Objects- Children can count how many of each object there is.

Compare Numbers of Objects- Children can find object that there are more of than the horns.

Number Sentences- Children can add the number of cups to the number of cookie cutters.

Music

Homemade shaker- The beans can be put in the cup and a child can put the clock on the top of the cup and shake it.

Spoon Playing- Children can explore what objects make the loud or soft sounds when tapped with the spoon.

Horn Playing- Toot out songs and march around.

Fine Motor Skills

Clock Tracing– Children can use the clock tracing tool to create a clock as well as a specific time on a clock.

I bet you can come up with dozen of other ways to explore this bin. I bet your children can too.

If you are interested in learning more about sensory bins, you can check out the bins I have pinned on my Sensory Bin Pinterest board.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Leprechauns Never Lie

March 16, 2012 By Deirdre

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie into children’s books.

I look forward to seeing the ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

- Link your activity below.

- Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. the badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

- Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

- If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

The leprechaun in Leprechauns Never Lie by Lorna Balian is a very tricky guy. Ninny Nanny and her Gram are in dire straits prior to catching the leprechaun. Once he has been accidentally captured when Ninny Nanny falls over a log and onto him, the leprechaun appears to forget where he has hidden his gold.

The leprechaun first tells them that he thinks it is in the straw that was to have been put on the roof of the thatched house to repair the holes that exist there. Ninny Nanny tries spreading it on the ground and finds moving it to the roof is the best solution.

Then he says it is in a pile of branches under a tree that should have been taken in as firewood. Gran sorts through branches to look for coins and Ninny Nanny carries them into the fireplace.

Next, he says it is in the river. Ninny Nanny has to drag buckets of the water to a water barrel outside their house that is empty when dropping it on the ground fails to keep the water from flowing back into the river.

Finally, he remembers it was moved to the potato patch that is filled with potatoes that Ninny Nanny had been too lazy to dig up. After digging up all but one plant, Ninny Nanny is furious that the treasure can’t be found.

She is so upset that she releases the leprechaun in a fit of anger. He runs as fast as he can away.

That night Ninny Nanny and Gran have potato soup by a warm fire made of wood Ninny Nanny brought in. Later in the night, the leprechaun returns after they have gone to sleep to retrieve his gold from under the last plant.

I love that Ninny Nanny and Gran along with the leprechaun both end up with treasure. This is such a fun book to read. The brown and white pictures are filled with humor and whimsy.

What did we do?

We upcycled the wipes container and made it a treasure chest. Inside the treasure chest was pinto beans and shamrocks. JDaniel had to dig for the shamrocks using a little rake. After a few minutes of raking, he decided to use measuring spoons instead.

Once he had found all of the shamrocks, he decided to just transfer the beans back and forth between the treasure check and the container I use to hold the pinto beans.

Wipe Container Becomes a Storage Container

When we finished playing with the beans and shamrocks, we put plastic bags into the wipe container. We put the container in my car so, we will have plastic bags and a hand to store treasures ( acorns and small rocks we find during outings, dirty clothes, and more.

Shamrock Cookies

JDaniel loves to eat cookies and make them. We made shamrock cookies to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and to share with friends.