Easy Peasy sensory bins

Many many years ago I used to work in a preschool room with 2.5 - 3.5 year old kids. We had a lot of fun getting them interested in certain topics by introducing sensory bins. For example, if we wanted to teach them about colours, we would make rainbow coloured rice sensory bins. If we wanted to teach them about farm animals, we would create a farm animal sensory bin. Sensory bins were always a huge hit with this age group. It didn't matter if the bin was filled with water, sand, dried pasta or shaving cream the kids would flock to it.

So now, here I am with my own 2 1/2 year old and I thought a sensory bin would be a great activity for him. He is always playing with his cars and diggers so I thought this would be a great extension to his play with cars.

I just bought a large Rubbermaid bin (26.5 L), added a bag of red lentils, his diggers, some river rocks and some spoons and bowls. He spend a good 40 minutes playing with this. 40 MINUTES!!!!!!! It was awesome! I highly recommend you make a sensory bin for your little ones. It is a great way to keep them busy and also it's a great way for you to get the dishes done un-interrupted! LOL!

 
 Levi really wanted to get in there too but I was a little worried about how messy it would get with him and those tiny red lentils so yesterday afternoon I made him a sensory bin with different dried pasta shapes and bigger diggers and shape sorters.

 He loved it so much he just sat right down IN THE BIN and played for a good 1/2 an hour.

 But with Levi, I couldn't do any dishes. I needed to stay close because he still puts things in his mouth and I didn't want him to choke on any of the dried pasta. He loved it so much and he was so happy, which then made me happy!

Paxton joined in this fun too. He especially liked filling all the containers with pasta and then pouring them out.

Any fun sensory activities you have tried with your two year old? Let me know, I'm always up for good ideas!