Are you looking for sensory bin fillers? We are sharing some of our favorite sensory bin fillers!
Filling The Sensory Bin
Our sensory bin is nothing fancy! A plastic tub. And it sits on a stand made of PVC pipe!
What makes the sensory bin so fantastic is what goes inside! With some fairly cheap and easy items and some differentiated academic components, you have a super fun center/workstation for your class!
How much of each filler depends on how big your bin is and how full you would like the bin!
All of the non-food sensory bin filler items are saved and used for years. The food that is dyed is saved and used again. Anything food related that isn’t dyed is thrown out so it doesn’t attract bugs.
Here’s how I differentiate my sensory bin:
I copy recording sheets on different color paper! The color of the paper matches the color of the group for centers.
When I create sensory bin resources, I create two different levels. The recording sheets have the same images so the kids know what they’re looking for in the sensory bin!
For example, I made dinosaur bones and feet for CVC words and CVC-E words. The pink and purple group had dino feet on their pink and purple recording sheet. So they would grab a pink or purple recording sheet and because it has feet on it, they know to look for feet! Same with the blue and green group and CVC words on the bones!
Sensory Bin Fillers
Back To School
For this number recognition sensory bin, we used colored pasta noodles and rainbow cards. And no, the pasta doesn’t stay this neat!
This sensory bin is made with alphabet pasta from Walmart. We dyed the pasta in rainbow colors and added sparkly letter cards.
Halloween Fillers!
Oats and rubber critters from the Dollar Tree made a fun Halloween sensory bin! (The oats are messy but easy to clean up!)
These sensory bins use split green peas and black beans! The spider bin uses plastic spider rings. The witch bin uses witch hats and brooms from Amazon. CLICK HERE TO GET THEM!
Here is another Halloween sensory bin! These are just split peas (green) and black beans! We found the skeleton hand at Dollar Tree and added that to the sensory bin for fine motor practice. The eyeballs are from Dollar Tree as well!
The eyeballs are from our Frankenstein creation!
November/Thanksgiving Sensory Bins
This sensory bin uses corn and fake acorns. We used cards from our Raking Leaves resource. We also added mini tongs from Walmart so students can get fine motor skills practice. After we finish with this bin, the corn is thrown out into the wooded area outside of our classroom to feed the animals!
Valentine’s Day!
This sensory bin uses red pasta. These are shells that we died red using food coloring. The hearts are glitter hearts from Hobby Lobby.
This Valentine’s Day sensory bin uses glittery hearts and balls from Hobby Lobby! Because, well we love glitter!
The hearts are from our I HEART Valentine’s Day Creation!
Christmas/Holidays Around The World
The red and green filler are chick peas. The silver filler is garland/tinsel that we cut into pieces. We added Christmas bows and small ornaments from Walmart.
This is peppermint scented rice. We dyed the rice red and add peppermint extract for a very fresh smell!
Football
Beans and rubber footballs from Party City!
St. Patrick’s Day!
Metallic beans! I used liquid metallic watercolor paint to make gold and silver beans! They were so shiny and sparkly! You know how I love sparkly things!
Add in some shamrocks and you’ve got a sensory bin fit for your leprechauns!
This sensory bin is lima beans dyed in rainbow colors! We added some glittery shamrocks and cards from our St. Patrick’s Day creation!
For this sensory bin, we used our metallic beans and added these glittery St. Patrick’s Day shapes from Michaels!
Easter!
Easter basket grass. Plastic eggs. Each egg is labeled with sight words! They match the sight words and write or color!
We also used pasta dyed green and orange to make a fun carrot sensory bin!
For this sensory bin, we used our Carrot Sight Word game for sight word practice!
This butterfly sensory bin is filled with glitter balls from Dollar Tree!
This is a frog sensory bin using pasta dyed green and fake frogs from Dollar Tree!
New Year’s Day!
For our New Year’s sensory bins we use disco balls from Hobby Lobby and some sparkly balls to go with the disco balls. We will use cards from our Smashing Disco Balls creation!
For this New Year sensory bin, we use confetti and disco balls! The confetti is from Amazon! Click here to grab a bag or two!
We will use noisemakers and party hats from our Happy New Year creation in this sensory bin!
You can also grab our year-long sensory bin resource with over 500 pages of differentiated sensory bin activities and recording sheets!
If you want to learn more about our sensory bins, check out our FREE WEBINAR! Click here to register:
For more sensory bin information, check out these posts:
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9 comments
Do you have the measurements of you sensory bin? What I would need to make it? This looks like a perfect “lego” project for the Hubs!!!
This is amazing. It will be great for Sensory Processing Disorder children. How do you make the colored salt and the crayon colored rice? Thanks for sharing this.
what do the answer sheets look like. are students making words out of the cards, etc? I am new to kindergarten and need a lot of help.
The answer sheets are just pieces of paper that allow the students to color or write the answers. Recording sheets are included with all of my centers in my TPT Store!
Pom Poms are another favorite sensory bin filler for my kiddos. They love digging through pom poms! I also used shredded paper that I made from running construction paper through my home shredder.
How do you dye your rice and pasta?
I personally have done it with water colors and also with food coloring. Just put it in a ziploc bag with the food coloring and a little alcohol and shake! If with watercolor put in ziploc bag and shake!
Do you save all of your sensory bin materials for next year or do you have to keep buying new each year?
I save it when I can!