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10 Sensory Bins Using Food

October 21, 2014 by Emma Edwards 10 Comments

Here at Adventures of Adam we love sensory bins. They are a great way of getting the benefits of sensory play, such as cognitive, language and physical development, with no mess involved. As the resources are kept in a small container, cleaning up afterwards is quick. Food makes a great base for a sensory bin. Most items are already in your kitchen cupboard making it a cost effective play activity.

Here are our top 10 sensory bins using food:

1. Edible Dinosaur Sensory Bin 

Adventures of Adam edible dinosaur sensory bin

Everything in this sensory bin is edible – even the dinosaurs! Broken rice cakes, biscuits and bread sticks form the sensory bin base and raw broccoli, raisins, apricots and apple puree were used to decorate the Jurassic themed bin. Melted chocolate created a mud pool. A volcano was made by mixing drinking chocolate powder, flour and warm water to form a dough and baked beans were used as molten lava.  A perfect activity if you have a toddler who likes to put everything into their mouth.

2. Oats and Chick Pea Building Site

Adventures of Adam oats and chick pea building site

A bag of porridge oats and a can of chick peas formed a perfect base for diggers and tractors to transport. Adam spent the activity exploring the two textures, emptying the trucks, mixing the oats around in the water already on the Tuff Spot Tray (affiliate link) and picking out the chick peas into a baking tray

3. Edible Jelly Worms

Adventures of Adam edible jelly worms

By pouring jelly, water, gelatine, food colouring and coconut milk into drinking straws we created these realistic edible worms. We substituted raisins for mud to form our worm sensory bin.

4. Smash Fun

Adventures of Adam smash tuff spot

Smash, or instant potato, was the first messy activity that Adam really enjoyed. He didn’t mind tipping the contents over himself whilst transferring the powder from one container to another. Adding warm water to the Smash created a consistency like playdough.

5. Heinz Alphabetti Pasta Messy Play

Adventures of Adam messy play with cars

This sensory bin combined Adam’s two obsessions – transport and letters. One can of Heinz Alphabetti Pasta was all it took. The diggers stopped Adam having to touch the tomato based sauce but he could still move the pasta around to find individual letters.

6. Harvest Sensory Bin

Adventures of Adam Harvest Sensory Bin

Using a range of breakfast cereals we formed a sensory bin to celebrate harvest. Shreddies, Weetabix and Cherrios proved to be a great hit with Adam who decided to try and eat these for the first time!

7. Rainbow Spaghetti

Adventures of Adam Rainbow Spaghetti

This was our first ever attempt at a sensory activity. Adam wasn’t put off by the texture of the spaghetti and saw it as a ’taking-it-out-and-putting-it-back-in-activity.’ However, Adam’s cousin Beth, saw it as lunch!

8.Cornflake Sensory Bin

Adventures of Adam cornflake sensory Tuff Spot

Cornflakes are great to stomp in as they make a super crunching sound. They can also be explored with fingers, scoops, kitchen rolls and a milk bottle.

9. Dinosaur Sensory Bin turned Construction Sensory Bin

Day 25 dinos (10)

We discovered with this sensory bin that things do not always go to plan. The idea was to melt chocolate to form mud and for small dinosaurs to stomp around the bin. However, as Adam had no previous experience of what a dinosaur was he was less than impressed – as you can tell by his face. Instead of giving up on the activity I quickly swapped the dinosaurs  for diggers. Within moments we had a construction sensory bin where Adam could scoop up the chocolate mud and transport it around the bin. Smiles all round!

Adventures of Adam Construction sensory bin

10. Wheat Flakes Sensory Bin

Adventures of Adam mark making with wheat flakes

When I find out of date food at the back of the cupboard my first thought is no longer to throw it out but to think what play activity can the food be turned into. Wheat flakes are great for mark making.

Adventures of Adam sensory bins using food

 

Exciting news!

Adventures of Adam has become an official Toys R Us Toyologist. We are having lots of fun testing different toys!

Adventures of Adam Toys R Us Toyologist

 

Filed Under: Play Activities, Some time required, Supervision needed Tagged With: Activity round ups, Fine Motor Activities, Jelly, Sensory Play Activities

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. MoolBoots says

    October 23, 2014 at 11:01 am

    There are some great ideas her, will definitely be trying some!

    Reply
    • Emma Edwards says

      October 24, 2014 at 6:39 am

      Thank you. Adam’s favourite activity was Harvest Sensory Bin whereas mine was the Edible Dinosaur Sensory Bin.

      Reply
  2. Boo Roo and Tigger Too says

    October 23, 2014 at 1:09 pm

    Some amazing ideas, I will have to share this with Tigger’s pre-school #playtime

    Reply
    • Emma Edwards says

      October 24, 2014 at 6:52 am

      Thank you. I bet Tigger’s pre-school would love the list.

      Reply
  3. Rachel (",) says

    October 26, 2014 at 7:06 am

    Lovely blog, Emma! I’ve not seen it before – just popped over to peep after you commented on my Halloween post (“,)

    Reply
  4. mummyoftwo2 says

    October 27, 2014 at 7:29 am

    So many brilliant ideas here! My daughter has always loved playing with cereal.

    Reply
  5. Merlinda Little (@pixiedusk) says

    November 4, 2014 at 1:16 pm

    Aha now I know what to do with the beans that is in the firdge for days! A lovely activity! Thanks for sharing. #LetKidsBeKids

    Reply
  6. muminanutshell says

    November 4, 2014 at 1:44 pm

    brilliant ideas! Porridge oats in builder trays were always a big hit in my work place until someone complained were wasting food! #letkidsbekids

    Reply
  7. Karen Bell says

    November 4, 2014 at 2:19 pm

    Lots of great ideas there. I like the look of the 1st one best, though I think melted chocolate also has to be fab!
    Thanks for linking #LetKidsBeKids

    Reply
  8. Tarana Khan says

    November 4, 2014 at 8:38 pm

    I love the concept of edible sensory bins! In fact, I like all these ideas – they are perfect for my toddler 🙂

    Reply

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Emma and Adam

During a difficult pregnancy suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) Emma vowed to make every day an adventure once she had recovered. Adventures of Adam is the outcome of completing a 100 day play challenge with Adam as part of that promise. Emma has a section dedicated to HG friendly play activities so that Mums can still be part of their children’s play whilst they are ill.

To learn more about Emma and Adam click here.


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