Toddler Sensory Activtiy: Winter Sensory Bin

I decided to really delve into the sensory experience with our January sensory bin! :-) I saw fun posts at Growing a Jeweled Rose and The Imagination Tree for SNOW DOUGH. I kind of combined both their recipes to come up with this!

I used cornstarch, vegetable oil, glitter, and the fake flaky snow. Then added in some glue gems, larger clear plastic gems, snowflake/tree/penguin foamie stickers, and some sparkly styrofoam balls. Lastly, I just had to add in sugar cubes for "snow blocks". Luckily, my son (who LOVES candy and anything sugary) hasn't figured out they are edible! ;-) The peppermint smell was such a big hit with our holiday sensory bin that I thought it would be fun to incorporate smell again. I added lemon extract to the mixture this time and it smells heavenly!!

The upside down pyramid is a see-thru blue container from Dollar Tree. And I added in blue scooping utensils.

I thought it would be neat to have this on the light table so the blue pyramid would light up as well as the clear gems.

I set the whole thing up on a shower curtain liner from Dollar Tree knowing this would get incredibly messy. The shower curtain was great! I just folded it in half and was able to dump the mess back in the bin.

 My son was VERY unsure of this material when he first approached it.

You can tell in his expressions and by the way he curls up his fingers that this is a bit overwhelming for him.

 But he stuck with it and started off by NOT touching it if he could. He scooped and poured for a bit.

 Then he got into touching it and squeezing the material through his hands.

As usual, big sister got into it right when she got home from school:

 She tried packing it like a sand castle. It sort of worked.

Then she made a lit-up path to a tower with a jewel treasure at the top! :-) I love that she came up with a story for what she created.

 She has come back to it several times and finds it calming.

My son has enjoyed coming back to it several times as well. He is pretty messy with it but I'm trying to be tolerant of the mess. It really can get everywhere if he's not closely supervised. Not sure I can handle this level of messy sensory play in our bins often. But every once in a while it's fun! ;-)