Super Simple Guide to Sensory Bins on a Budget
Sensory play is an amazing developmental explorative activity. If you are anything like me, you have been all over the web searching for the latest and greatest of all things curated sensory bins. Checking out the monthly subscription options, dreaming of buying them all. Oh, so bummed that we can’t for whatever reason. For me, I have three children of my own plus another handful at my in-home childcare. They aren’t going to sit around and share one bin until a new one shows up next month for a monthly membership and I certainly am not going to go purchase 7 different curated bins at one time (as much as I would love to).
Whether your story is similar, you are a DIYer for everything, a penny pincher, or another reason completely, you’ve come to the right place! We’re going to curate our own sensory bin on a budget and guess what…it’s going to be AMAZING!
What is a Sensory Bin
A sensory bin is a hands-on learning activity for children that involves using a container filled with various materials to stimulate their senses.
The bin typically contains items with different textures, shapes, colors, and sometimes scents.
Common materials found in sensory bins include rice, sand, beans, or other sensory-friendly items such as cotton balls, water, or even dirt.
Children can explore and play in the bin, engaging their senses while promoting sensory development, fine motor skills, and imaginative play.
Benefits of Sensory Bins
Sensory bins provide opportunities for children to explore and engage their senses in a hands-on way. These bins are amazing for younger children and older children alike.
Promotes Cognitive Development
Sensory play encourages children to use their imagination, problem-solving skills, and creativity as they explore different materials, textures, and objects within the bin.
- Consider the very first time you set one of these containers in front of your child, no instructions, no objective. They have an ability to take some of the simplest things and turn it into a game, a scene, a story.
Fine Motor Skills
Manipulating the materials within the sensory bin, such as pouring, scooping, and sorting, helps to develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
- Adding large tweezers is a great way to get your littles working on those fine motor skills.
Calming Effect
For some children, sensory play can have a calming effect, helping them to regulate their emotions and reduce stress or anxiety.
- Try creating a pouring station with water, craft sand, or rice.
Adding coloring to water makes an extra fun water play activity
Encourages Exploration and Curiosity
Sensory bins provide an open-ended play experience that encourages children to explore, experiment, and discover at their own pace.
- It’s okay to skip the theme, give your child a bin with random items tucked inside the filler and watch what they come up with.
Social Skills
When used in a group setting, sensory bins promote social interaction, cooperation, and sharing as children engage in collaborative play and communicate with one another.
- Try setting a large bin on the floor with cotton balls and some random household items like tongs and kitchen bowls. Allow the children to sit around the bin together and interact in this fun play time.
Educational Benefits
Sensory bins can be themed to align with educational topics or concepts, providing a hands-on way for children to explore and learn about subjects such as science, math, literacy, and cultural diversity.
- Grab my flower alphabet matching cards for a fun game in your next bin.
Versatility
Sensory bins can be easily customized with different materials, themes, and activities to suit the interests and developmental needs of individual children or groups.
- One of my favorite things about sensory materials is they can be changed out very easily for a new themed sensory bin each week. I love creating my activities around the interests in the kids in my care.
- You can offer individualized sensory bins tailored to each child’s specific preferences.
Inclusive Play
Sensory bins can be adapted to accommodate children with diverse abilities and sensory preferences, making them inclusive and accessible for all children to enjoy.
- Do you have a child in your care with sensitivities to certain textures? You can offer a variety of textures such as smooth, rough, soft, and crunchy. Fabric instead of beads. Rice instead of sand.
- For children with visual impairments consider adding items with auditory elements.
What Materials Do We Need
You can make these as simple or extravagant as you would like but remember with most kids, you don’t need some big showy toy to make them excited. Sometimes less really is more. When making your sensory bin on a budget you only need a few things:
- Container with sides
- Filler
- Toys and tools
Sounds simple right? Doable!
Related Article: Check out my Easy Easter Sensory Bin post for more ideas
Container with Sides
The first step to great sensory play is picking out the right container. You want something with sides. The reason for sides is pretty simple, where a child’s goal is play and exploration…ours is usually to try and contain the mess as much as possible.
I promise you, some (a lot) of that rice is going to be on the floor.
A great option would be a cakepan or cookie sheet. This is a great size for little hands, the sides of the container are sturdy, and it’s something most people have available at their homes.
If you are hoping to use this over and over, consider using a bin with a cover. When you’re done, simply put on the lid and tuck away until your little is ready to play again.
Filler
For the sake of our budget friendly sensory bin, we are going to keep it simple. We’re going to raid our cabinet. Rice, dry beans, or dry pasta make a great filler for sensory bins. They’re all awesome textural items, they pour great and feel fun on little hands. Bonus, they’re all reusable for future sensory fun.
Not feeling the food sensory items, that’s okay! Try using items like cotton balls, shaving cream, or collect items from outside like flowers or twigs.
Check out this quick list of 25 food and non-food fillers you can use.
| Rice | Dry Pasta | Dry Black Beans | Sand | Shredded Paper |
| Pom poms | Feathers | Cotton Balls | Jello Cubes | Shaving Cream |
| Kinetic Sand | Bubble Wrap | Flowers and Twigs | Water | Soapy Water |
| Chocolate Pudding | Plastic Straws Cut into Pieces | Shells | Fabric Scraps | Packing Peanuts |
| Snow | Buttons | Nuts and Bolts | Cereal | Craft Sticks |
Coloring Your Rice or Pasta
If you feel like taking it one step farther, how about making some rainbow rice! Find some acrylic paint and a Ziplock bag. Dump your white rice or other filler item into the bag and squirt some paint into the bag. Close it up and shake shake shake!
My kids love this process.
After your filler is thoroughly shaken, spread it out on some parchment paper to dry.
That’s it…for real.
Toys and Tools
One thing I like to do when coming up with our next sensory bins is consider all the toys we have laying around. Collect small little figurines or tractors. Fake flowers and creepy crawly bugs. Foam number or letter pieces. Keep the items small and remember you don’t need a lot. Heck, they could be completely random…Your kids will know what to do!
Feel free to omit the toy portion all together, grab out some little cups and measuring spoons.
Or have a mixture of both.
A Great Place to Buy Sensory Bin Items On a Budget
If you absolutely need to run to a store to pick up some items for your sensory bin, consider the dollar store. I love utilizing the Dollar Tree for all my childcare needs when I need many items or am trying to stick to a budget.
These items were all found at the Target dollar spot
Items to Watch for at Your Local Dollar Store
- Pans
- Containers with lids
- Zip lock bags (used for coloring filler or storing items for later)
- Filler
- Rice
- Dry beans
- Pasta
- Fish bowl rocks
- Cotton balls
- Small toys
- Bugs
- Trucks
- Farm animals
- Small seasonal items
- Gemstones
- Puzzels
- Foam shapes, letters, numbers
- Fake flowers
- Pots
- Small shovels
- Gardening gloves
- Tools
- Measuring cupsTongsTweezers (large chunky tweezers in the kids section)funnels
- Magnets (they often have large horseshoe shaped ones that are awesome!)
- Fun shaped Egg containers during Easter time
I could go on and on so we will save that post for another day.
Take Away Tips
- Don’t get stuck on looking at all the perfect Instagram or Pinterest pictures. They’re beautiful, but they only show you the before pictures.
- Try taking your bin to the floor, lay out a towel or tablecloth to catch the mess.
- Make sure everyone washes their hands prior to exploring, your filler will last longer.
- Store dry fillers in a sealed container, dispose of wet or edible fillers.
- Build your bins around the interests of your littles.
- The children in your care will love what you create for them.
Time to Play!!
The goal with sensory bins is to let your child use their imagination. Let them explore. Let them figure out the objective. Maybe there is none, maybe they don’t do things the way you would expect them to as you were creating this container of amazingness for them. It’s okay! It’s out of your hands now and into theirs, they know what to do even if we don’t tell them. Let them explore while you watch. It’s kind of magical.
