Contact Us Make a payment Check In

Tag: Sensory Bins

The Magic of Sensory Bins

Posted on

Unleashing Creativity and Play: The Magic of Sensory Bins in Occupational Therapy

In the world of occupational therapy, sensory bins are a beloved tool used to foster creativity, play, and learning. Sensory bins are simple setups; however, they provide children with hands-on experiences to stimulate their senses, all while encouraging play. 

 

 

 

 

What is a Sensory Bin?

A sensory bin is a container filled with materials to offer diverse sensory experiences. Sensory bins can be as simple as a box filled with rice or as elaborate as a themed setup with various textures and materials. The goal of creating a sensory bin is to include items for children to explore through touch, sight, sound, and sometimes even smell or taste. 

 

Benefits of Sensory Bins

  1. Stimulating the Senses—Sensory bins can engage children’s senses through various materials. They can offer unique tactile experiences through different textures like beans, rice, pasta, sand, or flour. 
  2. Supporting Cognitive Development—Sensory bins can be tailored to support different learning objectives. For example, submerging alphabet letters or numbers in the bin can help children practice letter and number recognition, enhancing their skills. Sensory bins can also early literacy be a fun way to integrate learning and sensory development. 
  3. Providing opportunities for Creativity – When tailored to a specific theme, sensory bins allow creativity and imaginative play. Sensory bins are naturally open-ended, allowing the use of materials within the bin in various ways for play. 
  4. Enhancing Fine Motor Skills—Sensory bins can include various tools to encourage fine motor skill development. Items such as spoons, tweezers, and tongs allow children to develop hand strength, bilateral coordination, and hand-eye coordination. 
  5. Increasing Emotional Regulation – Sensory play is naturally calming and therapeutic, especially with sensory bins. Children can improve sustained attention and better manage their emotions with repetitive scooping, pouring, and sorting motions. Sensory bins provide a place for self-regulation and relaxation. 
  6. Fostering Social Skills – When used in a group setting, sensory bins can promote social interaction and cooperation. Learning to share materials, engage in imaginative play, and play in shared spaces are all benefits of sensory bins. 

 

Creating Your Own Sensory Bin

  1. Select Materials – The possibilities are ENDLESS. Common materials used in sensory bins include rice, beans, sand, and pasta. Other items could include plastic animal figurines, building blocks, or pom poms. These items can be cost effective and are often found around your home already. It is important to ensure that materials are safe and age appropriate for the age group. 
  2. Incorporating Tools – Add spoons, tongs, containers, tweezers, and other tools to enhance the play experience. 
  3. Set Up the Bin – Arrange the materials within a container. If desired, include other elements such as themed toys, letters/numbers, or activity cards. Make sure the bin is large enough for the children to explore comfortably. 
  4. Optional – Starting with a Theme – Start with a theme that interests your child and can support the current learning objectives. Themes can range from seasons to holidays to your child’s favorite show. 

 

How Can Carolina Therapy Connection Help?

Here at Carolina Therapy Connection, our Occupational Therapist often incorporates sensory bins into your child’s treatment sessions when appropriate. We are constantly switching out our bins with new sensory experiences for our clients. Consult with your child’s Occupational Therapist for more ideas and information about ways to include sensory bins into your child’s play routine at home. 

Sensory bins are more than just a fun play activity. They are powerful tools to support your child’s sensory development, fine motor skills, emotional regulation, social skills, and creativity. Incorporating sensory bins into your child’s play routine can help create enriching experiences! So, gather your materials, embrace the mess, and embark on a sensory adventure with your child that is both joyful and educational. 

 

What’s in Your Sensory Bins!

Posted on

What is a Sensory Bin?

A sensory bin contains various mediums to provide sensory input via tactile, auditory, and visual stimuli. As an Occupational Therapy Assistant, I treat kiddos who are defensive to sensory input. This can affect feeding, tolerating clothing, tolerating self-care like hair brushing or tooth brushing, and the various textures or sensory inputs we encounter daily. A sensory bin can provide the necessary sensory input to improve attention to tasks, decrease tactile defensiveness, improve tolerance for self-care, improve emotional regulation skills, improve communication skills, and assist with the development of social skills. 

Choosing the Right Container: 

A plastic clear container is ideal because you can see what’s inside and is easy to clean when you are ready to switch out your mediums. You can also use baskets, trays, bowls, etc.

Filling Options: 

  • Base materials: Rice, sand, kinetic sand, dried beans, shredded paper. You can also use edible items such as crushed crackers/cookies, noodles, quinoa, etc, for kiddos who put things in their mouths regularly.
  • Textures: Soft fabric, smooth stones, fluffy cotton balls, feathers, ribbons, or squishy foam. 
  • Colors: Use colored rice or dyed pasta for visual stimulation. Themed Sensory Boxes: 
  • Themes like nature, ocean, outer space, Easter/Spring, or seasons can give great ideas when unsure what to put together. 
    • For example, an ocean theme could include crushed crackers for sand, blue jello for water, and sea animal toys. 
    • Another example is a nature theme, including various leaves, sticks, rocks/stones, animal or insect toys, dirt or crushed Oreos, and gummy worms!
    • Just one more example: Spring could include wildflowers (real or pretend), toy birds/chicks, chickpeas, cotton balls, feathers, etc. 

Incorporating Scents: 

  • Explore scented elements to enhance the sensory experience.
  • Consider items like scented playdough, essential oils, food items, or dried herbs. 

Incorporating Tastes: 

  • If you have a kiddo who is working on trialing new foods/food textures, you can make your sensory bin ALL FOOD items! This allows your child to work on expanding their food repertoire while decreasing the fear associated with trying new foods at mealtimes. 

Sensory Box Safety Tips: 

  • Consider age-appropriate items and avoid small parts that could be a choking hazard. 
  • Remember, when using food/wet items, to change them out regularly to prevent mold/mildew buildup. 
  • AVOID ORBEEZ, please! They are not safe and could cause damage to the internal organs if consumed! 

Have Your Child Assist: 

  • Having your child assist with making the sensory box can be a great way to build communication skills, improve the development of social skills, and decrease fear regarding textures. 
  • Oftentimes, children who are defensive to textures can become very upset or fearful when presented with a new medium. However, if the child can see where the medium comes from, it could decrease the fear significantly! This is also a good opportunity to have your child touch different textures! 

How can Carolina Therapy Connection help? 

  • Ask your child’s therapist about sensory bin ideas used here in the clinic.
  •  Pinterest has great ideas as well!

By: Shelby Godwin, COTA