Weather Sensory Bins
Sensory bins are a fun way to add a tactile and engaging activity to your classroom! This blog will focus on weather themed sensory bins that are budget friendly, and quick to do make when you are crunched for time.
The first thing I did was check what supplies I already had in the classroom that I could use- because lets face it, we don’t always want to stop somewhere and buy more items after work. Once I had an idea of what I was going to do for the 4 weather sensory bins: sunny, cloudy, raining, and snowy, I gathered my materials from around the classroom and began to create the bins!
Weather sensory bin: Sunny
For my sunny themed sensory bin, I had found some already pre-died orange and red noodles that I know my students love to play with. Dying noodles is a really easy and cheap way to make a sensory bin filler. All you do is pour the dried pasta in a large plastic bag, add some rubbing alcohol and food dye into the bag. The amount of rubbing alcohol and food dye depends on the amount of pasta, I always just eye ball as there really isn’t a wrong amount. I then close the bag and shake it all together, let it soak in the bag for about 10-15 minutes and then pour it out on a tray to dry. You can also do this with rice!
I then cut up some yellow pipe cleaners and sprinkled them throughout the bin. I then grabbed an orange jumbo tweezer for my students to use a fine motor tool to try and pinch the yellow pipe cleaners. The jumbo tweezers can be found here!
List of materials used:
- dried pasta noodle
- rubbing alcohol
- red and yellow food dye
- yellow pipe cleaners
- jumbo tweezer
How to engage students in this bin:
- ask your students questions like: what weather does this bin reminds you of? what does the weather look like when we see these colors in the sky? what can you do in this weather? what do you wear in this weather?
- have your students use the tweezers to grab the pipe cleaner and then use 1:1 correspondence to count the pipe cleaners
- have you students use the tweezer and grab items by color, “can you grab something orange”
Weather sensory bin: Cloudy
The first thing I thought when thinking about making a cloudy weather sensory bin was cotton balls! This is a supply I always have in my classroom so I knew this would be a great choice as a base for my sensory bin. When looking through my cupboards, I found rocks that were different shades of blue. I decided to use these to add another tactile element to the bin and adding a blue element into the white to make it look more like a cloudy sky. I then cut up some silver pipe cleaners to use as rain or lightening, depending on what you want to do. And then grabbed a blue jumbo tweezer as a fine motor tool!
List of materials used:
- cotton balls
- colored rocks
- silver pipe cleaners
- blue jumbo tweezer
How to engage students in this bin:
- ask your students questions like: what weather does this bin reminds you of? what does the weather look like when we see these colors in the sky? what can you do in this weather? what do you wear in this weather? do you like this weather?
- have your students use the tweezers to grab the pipe cleaner and then use 1:1 correspondence to count the pipe cleaners
- have you students use the tweezer and grab items by color, “can you grab something white”
- have your students sort items in the bin by color
- ask your students to find something soft or something hard, have them sort items by texture: “soft and hard”
Weather sensory bin: Rainy
For this sensory bin I wanted to try and make it a hands on experience for my students. I started by having them spray shaving cream into a bin. I then had a cup of water next to the bin, and I would have my students dip a sponge into the cup of water and get the sponge soaked with water. After that, they would squeeze the water onto the shaving cream and watch the water drip out of the sponge onto the shaving cream to resemble that it was raining. Shaving cream and a sponge is always something that is in my classroom as well, making this a really time and cost efficient sensory bin that the students loved!
List of materials used:
- a plastic bin
- shaving cream
- a sponge
- cup of water
How to engage students in this bin:
- ask your students questions like: what weather does this bin reminds you of? what does the weather look like when we see these colors in the sky? what can you do in this weather? what do you wear in this weather? do you like this weather? How does this feel?
- giving your students free time with bin to explore, feel, and play with the different elements that are with this activity
Weather sensory bin: Snowy
For my snow themed sensory bin, I used fake snow that is pictured above. You can find that snow here! My students absolutely love to play engage with this! It is a super easy and cheap way to make a fun, lasting activity. All you do is add some water to the powder, and watch it turn into cold, puffy snow!
List of materials used:
- fake snow
- extra large plastic bin
How to engage students in this bin:
- have your student measure out the snow powder, go to the sink and add the correct amount of water, and mix the two ingredients together. this is a great way to work on follow step-by-step instructions
- allow your students to play, feel, and create using the snow
Storing sensory bin materials:
My favorite way to store my sensory bins is just in a big gallon sized zip loc bag! I use one per bin, and usually will label the bag with a sharpie (ie: cloudy sensory bin materials).
Hopefully you found this blog to be helpful! For more information on budget friendly sensory bins, check out this blog!
