I forgot how much I love making sensory bins for the kids. I actually haven’t done one in quite some time. I saw a couple of adorable bins come through my instagram feed the other day and felt compelled to throw something together for my little ones. We have been planting our real gardens and flowers outside and C has been extremely into it this year so I thought it might be fun to make a mini garden he could play with in the house too! I already had all these pieces in my stash so it was easy peasy to throw together.
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Materials:
- black sand like ACTIVA Decor Sand, 28oz - Black| black rice, black beans, or even actual dirt. I’m thinking black kinetic sand would work well here too.
- Safari Ltd Flowers TOOB
- Wooden flower pots that I dyed with…
- liquid water colors
- Small indoor gardening utensils like these: Houseplant Tool Set 3 Pc Mntcr
- small rocks from the dollar store (or your own back yard)
I can not express to you how much C loved this sensory bin! He truthfully has not been into many of the sensory bins I’ve made. I typically get far more excited about them then he does. He played with this one for at least an hour the first time I presented it. Mind you that wasn’t an hour all by himself. He played by himself for a while and then wanted me to garden with him so I did. 
He got far more learning out of this little flower garden sensory bin than I had imagined he would. It was fun watching him think up different ways to play with it. He discovered that many of the flowers had a matching pot in the same color which enabled him to do a little color matching. 
He learned the names of a few new flowers (I love that Safari has the backs of the flowers labeled with their names). 
He discovered that the sand poured through the little holes in the bottom of the flower pots and was mesmerized by that for quite some time. We had a lot of the discussion about the sound the sand made as it was pouring down out of the pots and back into the bin. He would scoop and fill and transfer and pour until his little heart was content (or perhaps his mind was full). Eventually the sand became water and “watered” the plants using that same method. 
With more rain then sun in our forecast for the immediate future I think we’ll be leaving this little sensory bin out for a while so we can keep up with our indoor gardening. 
What do you think? Do your kids like to garden? If you like to pair activities like this up with with a good book or two. We like The Tiny Seed (The World of Eric Carle) and Planting a Rainbow.
If you liked this post you might also like this Foam Flower Garden Craft!
