Imagine a small spring garden, filled with treasures, just waiting to be explored by little hands. Spring is a wonderful time for kids to explore the season and all of the changes that happen. Bring spring into your classroom, or home with lots of hands-on learning activities, like this Spring Sensory Bin for Kids.
In my kindergarten class, I always plan to have a few hands-on sensory centers for children to explore during our center time. This spring themed sensory bin was very popular with my 3-6 year olds, so I’m excited to share it with you.
Kids love to explore sensory bins filled with different materials. This activity has another layer to it as children are challenged to explore the contents of the bin to find, count and then fill a ten frame.
Play based learning is a great way to get young children to stay engaged and enjoy what they are learning. If you love the idea of learning through sensory play, make sure to check out Play Learn Inspires popular collection of 20 Best Sensory Tray Ideas.
If you’re looking for more spring activities for kids, make sure to also check out another center Spring Math Activity for Preschool and Kindergarten where children roll, count and place eggs in a nest. You’ll also find a free printable to use and make set up a snap!
Also visit Teaching Ideas for a fun Spring Escape Room that can even be used for Easter to create a special activity for children of all ages.
Spring Sensory Bin Materials
There are lots of ways to make this sensory bin fancy, but you can also keep it simple and use materials that you already have on hand. Below I have suggested the materials that I used, but you can search through your collection, and use any spring items you already have. Below are my suggested supplies:
- Green Shredded Paper
- A Sensory Bin or Shallow Container
- Ten Frame Containers (Or free printable ten frame page)
- 10 x Mini Spring Items to be Found
Often the green shredded paper can be bought as gift basket filler, but any paper or filler can be used. It is simply intended to ‘hide’ the spring items that children will search for.
The ten frames are a great addition to any education program. I found mine at a local dollar store being used as a storage container for mini wooden pieces. You can use anything you have. If you don’t have containers with ten sections, you can just use a sheet of paper for kids to place the items on.
Use any spring mini items that you have on hand. I used plastic Easter eggs, foam carrots, mini bunny erasers and butterfly gems. You will need ten of each of the items you choose. You can use the same items for each ten frame, but including different materials adds to the challenge.
If you don’t have ten frame containers, you can download and print the free ten frame page available at the bottom of this activity description. Children can find and set the items on the printed ten frame page.
Preschool Math Activity
If you are using different mini items, glue one of each item into your ten frame container. This tells children what they are searching for.
Print the numbers 1-10 inside the ten frame. Place the other nine of each item in the shredded green paper. Add flowers or other spring items to add to the spring sensory bin theme.
Provide each child with a ten frame with the one items they will search for glued in the first spot. Children then search through the sensory bin for the rest of their mini items. As they find each one, they add it to their ten frame until the frame is full!
As children find the items, encourage them to place them in the ten frame, in order. This helps with counting by recognizing the numbers printed in the ten frame and organizing their ten frame. This is also a great way for children to learn one to one correspondence.
Spring Sensory Bin
Once kids have filled their ten frame, they can add the pieces back in the sensory bin and try another one of the ten frames, if you have used different items.
If you have older children exploring the bin, try printing numbers 11-20 inside one of the other ten frames. Then children have to find, and count to 20 for an extra challenge.
This activity is a great way to incorporate play into your child’s learning. You could create this spring sensory bin for any season and simply use different, themed mini items.
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