D is for Dinosaur Sensory Bin

Throughout the month of October bloggers from around the world have joined forces to create 31 Days of ABC’s. Activities, crafts, books, apps, and more, all dedicated to teaching young children the alphabet. Today it is our turn.

D is for Dinosaur Sensory Bin – specifically an Edible Dinosaur Sensory Bin.

Adam is showing an interest in dinosaurs since our recent trip to the Dinosaur Adventure Park. Despite a previous failed attempt at a dinosaur sensory bin, I thought it was time to try again. We had spotted 3D Dinosaur Cookie Cutters (affiliate link) cutters some time ago in Lakeland and knew it was the perfect excuse to buy them. Even with my inability to cook, the cookies came out well.

As the dinosaurs were made out of cookies I decided to create the whole sensory bin around edible items. I used raisins for a Jurassic dirt pool for the dinosaurs to wallow in together with apple purée for a sticky swamp. Raw broccoli looked realistic as trees, as did apricots as rocks. Broken up rice cakes worked well as uneven stony terrain.

I modelled a volcano by mixing drinking chocolate powder, flour and warm water to form a dough. Baked beans made great molten lava flowing down the sides of the volcano into rough sand which was created by crushing up some biscuits.

Just like our first dinosaur sensory bin I wanted to have a mud pool made from melted chocolate. I broke up bread sticks around the mud pool to form stones.

You wouldn’t want to be delving into our edible dinosaur sensory bin with a knife and fork as I can’t imagine baked beans and chocolate would taste particularly nice together. However, the activity would be perfect if you have a toddler who likes to put everything into their mouth. Adam certainly loved playing with it!