Have your kids started to notice any signs of fall yet? Fall, or autumn, happens at different times of the year depending on where you’re located. Some places have beautiful red, yellow, and orange leaves, and cooler weather; in other areas the fall changes are more subtle.
Your little learners will have a place with this fall sensory bin activity. It’s super simple to set up at home or in your preschool classroom for an autumn or thanksgiving sensory bin theme.
What Are Sensory Bins For Toddlers?
Sensory bins aren’t just fun, they’re an important part of any early childhood learning experience. Young children learn best when they can touch and feel something, sensory play provides opportunities for children to learn in meaningful ways.
A sensory bin is not about keeping kids busy. Instead, sensory bins provide opportunities for children to be successful, regardless of their language or cognitive abilities.
The secret to a successful sensory play experience is to not overthink what to put inside or how the kids should use it. The simpler the sensory bin, the more fun your kids will have playing and learning.
What the Benefits of Sensory Bins?
Sensory play is open-ended, meaning there is no clearly defined outcome of playing with or exploring the materials inside the bin.
Children use their senses and creativity to explore the materials offered in a sensory bin on their own without the expectation of an end product.
To recap, sensory bin play is meaningful to young children and provides opportunities for open-ended play.
Check out this research-based, playful learning unit in our curriculum shop!
The Ultimate Pre-K Fall Theme Bundle
A bundle of 21 of my most popular fall resources, including math and literacy small group activities! Make learning fun with these hands-on resources!
How Your Kids Can Learn from the Fall Sensory Bin
If the concept of sensory bins is new to you, I encourage you to learn more about what they are and how they work.
The most engaging types of sensory play are open-ended experiences without any pre-defined outcomes of playing with or exploring the materials inside the bin.
Children use their senses, imagination, and creativity to freely explore the materials inside the sensory bin without any expectation of an end product.
Providing your students with sensory play provides opportunities for them to engage in meaningful learning activities as they touch and explore the materials inside the sensory bins.
What Do You Put In A Fall Sensory Bin?
To set up this fun fall sensory bin experience, first you’ll want to gather your materials.
- Unpopped Corn Kernels
- Fake Leaves (Dollar Store)
- Tweezers (Gator Grabbers)
- Fake Acorns (Dollar Store)
- Bubble Tongs (Handy Scoopers)
- Mini Baskets (Dollar Store)
- Pine Cones
- Twigs
- Small Hand Brooms
I used corn kernels for this particular sensory bin activity, but there are plenty of other sensory bin tools and filler options out there to choose from – use the filler that works best for you and your students.
Trust me, you’ll need those little hand brooms because if the corn gets on the floor (and it will!) can be slippery. Just have the kids sweep up with the hand brooms and you’ll be good to go!
How to Use the Autumn Sensory Bin
Introduce the tweezers to your students and demonstrate how they can use them to pick up the leaves and place them in the baskets, this is wonderful for developing fine motor skills.
Invite your kids to use the bubble tongs to place pine cones and acorns in the baskets for additional counting and one-to-one practice.
Your kids may choose to just play in the corn, but don’t get discouraged! They’re still getting plenty of fine motor practice as they manipulate the scoops, tweezers, and items in the bin.
The most important thing about any sensory experiences is that your children are having fun while learning through play!
Thanksgiving Sensory Bin Variation
If you want to have this Autumn sensory bin to have more of a Thanksgiving theme, you can try adding more themed items or small toys such as:
- plastic toy turkeys
- Thanksgiving-related food toys (pumpkin pie, corn on the cob)
- fresh cranberries
- plastic Pilgrim people
More Fall Sensory Bins to Explore
- Halloween Spaghetti Sensory BinÂ
- Scarecrow Sensory Bin
- Easy Apple Sensory Bin for Fall
- 5 Little Pumpkins Halloween Sensory Bin
- Bat Sensory Bin
- Halloween Sensory Bin
More Fall Activities
Are you looking for more Fall ideas? Check Out These Activities Below!
Farm Sensory Bin
Acorn Science Activity
Colored Corn Art Mosaic
Scarecrow Sensory Bin
Best Books About Fall
More Ideas for Fall
