For my first Hands-On Play post I’d like to share a sensory bin I made to celebrate Caden’s third birthday! The idea with the I Spy Three! Sensory Bin is for Caden to have fun searching for some of his favorite objects (animals, bugs, cars, etc.) and to practice counting to three.
I had a lot of fun putting this together for him! I used fake snow as the base, but any base sensory material will do. Rice would be great too! And then I gathered three of each object to put in, such as three trains, or three sea creatures. When I had gathered all the items I planned to use in the bin, I arranged them on a white background and took some photos. In Photoshop I edited the photos and added some text “I spy 3…”. If you don’t have Photoshop you can use picmonkey.com or just print out the pictures and write on them with permanent marker. Once I printed my photos, I laminated them for durability. Punching a hole in the corner and attaching them to a ring might also be a good idea.
Initially, when Caden played with this bin he was a little overwhelmed by the amount of objects in the bin and he had a hard time finding the items on the picture card. So I took out all the extra pieces that I had thrown in and cut down on a lot of the visual clutter.
Caden also had a little difficulty getting over the fake snow sticking to his hands. So instead of trying to get him to look for the items on the picture card I just let him explore what was in the bin and play on his own.
The next time Caden played with the bin he did a little better at finding the items on the picture cards. But he decided it was more fun to just play with the items in the bin instead of looking for them. And that’s ok too! At three years old it’s all about having fun!
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Great idea! I love the idea of combining a sensory experience with a visual skills challenge! Will be using this activity for sure! 🙂
This is a great idea! I am sure my son would love this too.
What a great hands-on lesson. Thank you for hosting this great resource for early childhood.
This is such a fun way to work on the number 3 – because every kid’s favorite number is “their” number! (And happy birthday Caden!)
This is a great addition to a sensory tub. I so going to have to do this!
Thanks for linking up to the Thougtful Spot Bloghop!
So many sensory bins seem to just be about making a mess. I like the idea of this one!
Oh, I love, love this take on sensory bins! My girls love playing I Spy together and I know that they would love this! Definitely writing it down in my homeschooling journal plans 🙂 Great job!
Thanks Victoria! I’m sure you all will have fun with it!
Love the use of pictures as visual clue, putting this on my list things to do
This is a wonderful idea and I love the way you put it together with the photo cards. It will work with my younger Language students just as it is. For my older students, it lends itself to them answering WH questions – What are they? What do we do with them? Where would we find them? How are they the same/different with details.
Thank you for sharing your creative resource!
Rebecca Gunder
Including the cards was a great idea!