I don’t know who enjoys these more! I know I’m having a blast making them. Most of all, seeing my little one’s face when he knows that it’s time to explore and have fun. This week in light of my extreme love of all things fall, I created another Fall themed sensory bin for learning fun! The best part to this one was having fun layers of learning and/or creativity built right in. For our Pumpkin Patch sensory bin here is what you’ll need:
Materials
These are the materials I used. You can make your own using whatever fall stickers/materials you may have.
small lock lid bin of your choice
dried green peas
dried yellow lentils
sticker/decal alphabet letters
small brush
varied felt autumn leaves
varied foil autumn leaves
felt turkey stickers
wood pumpkin stickers
miniture foam pumpkins
wood turkey shapes for coloring or painting
I start with placing the stickers at the bottom of the bin and then covering them with the dried green peas and yellow lentils. This makes a fun sensory mix with great colors for the pumpkin patch.
I added felt and foil fall leaves in various colors creating a beautiful autumn landscape. Next, I used beautiful wood pumpkin stickers along the edges. The pumpkins came in orange, orange glitter and natural wood color. Unbelievably I found these at a local dollar store. I loved them the minute I saw them. Next, I added miniature glitter pumpkins. I also found these at the local dollar store. They were on sticks, I used scissors to cut the sticks. If you do this, don’t pull the stick out, it is what creates the stem. This mix created a beautiful pumpkin patch.
Finally I added a felt turkey sticker to the scene and also added three wooden turkeys propped up in the corner for the kiddos to color or paint. They loved it and went straight to work to complete the scene.
ACTIVITY 1 – LEVEL A
This is just a fun coloring or painting activity. Have each child who’s interested use various methods to decorate their turkey and add it to the pumpkin patch. I found a pack of about 6-8 of these at my local dollar store.
Where do the alphabet letters come in?
ACTIVITY 2 – LEVEL A with variations.
If your kiddo is working on learning his/her letters, he/she uses the brush to look for the letters. This letter hunt is always fun! As he/she finds letters they can yell out the letter name for letter recognition.
Variation #1
Kids search for letters and call out the letter name AND sound.
Variation #2
Kids search for letters and calls out the letter name AND sound. Next, they use a clipboard with lined paper to practice writing the uppercase letters.
Variation #3
Kids search for letters and calls out the letter name AND sound. Next, they use a clipboard with lined paper to practice writing the uppercase AND lowercase letters.
ACTIVITY 3 – LEVEL B with variations.
Kids search for letters. Once letters are found, they can write the letter on a sheet of paper and list 2-5 words that start with that letter. This was one of my little ones’ favorite parts. Thinking up words was hard at times but he asked for help from his siblings and even looked around at our room labels for clues. Even better, it’s an activity that can be done more than once with other variations of the activity while we are using it.
Variation #1
Have students answer different question:
Can you think of a color that starts with that letter?
Can you name an animal that starts with that letter? etc.
Variation #2
Have students search for words that start with that letter in your fall themed books for added fun. I will talk a bit about our interest book bin in my next post.
Variation #3
Once letters are found and a list of words are made. Children can write a 1-2 sentences using some of the words they wrote.
Most of all let kiddos have fun and come up with their own ways to play with the sensory bins.
As always, I’d love to hear from you at bernice@diapursity.com or comment below to hear about how this activity worked out for you or to hear your ideas.
Happy Adventuring and Happy Fall!
Bernice
