Child-Created Sensory Bins
Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure® books where kiddos embark on wildly entertaining, interactive multiple-choice multiple-ending reading adventures? {If you haven't, be sure to check out the website! The series is phenomenal - especially for reluctant readers!} Elise, creator of the blog, Inspiration Surrounds...Creativity Abounds, invites you to extend this same premise to the sensory bins in your home or classroom! Instead of concocting a theme and designing a bin with 'premeditated' items for your kiddos to encounter, let you kids do the hard part! All you have to do is collect your supplies...
Supplies You'll Need
- Base material - colored pasta, shredded paper, colored rice, beads, tulle, streamer pieces, etc.
- Craft materials - recycled card board, ribbon, chenille stems, craft puffs, glitter, craft glue, sequins, gems, craft sticks, cupcake liners, stickers, feathers, colored/patterned art paper, felt shapes, foam cutouts, etc.
- Natural elements - seashells, pine cones, leaves, twigs, flowers, rocks/stones, etc.
- Plastic figures, both animals and people
- Shoe boxes or small plastic tubs
Provide each of your kiddos with a shoe box or tub, filled with the base material of your choice. Then, armed with the rest of the goodies, invite them to imagine a scene, a place, an adventure {you name it!} and get to creating - filling their sensory bins with whatever suits their fancy! Elise mentions that this activity is great for groups of children of different age/skill levels. Since it is largely a student-led activity, each child can pursue their own interests at the "level" of their choosing.
Be sure to check out Elise's photos of this fantastic {and engaging!} activity as well as her supply lists!