Sensory bins are one of my daughter’s favorite things to play with! I love to make them every season for her and try to find ways to make them more interesting with seek and find pieces hidden underneath! Below is a simple tutorial on how I made this Santa Sensory Bin. The Santa image was inspired by the Anthropologie Santa doormat!
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Materials needed:
- Wood tray – if you use this one, make sure to tape sides of handles so rice doesn’t fall through
- 2 bags dry garbanzo beans
- Dye one bag of beans red by placing beans in a gallon ziploc bag, add a few drops of red acrylic paint and 2 pumps of hand sanitizer (shake well and lay out to dry).
- Dry large lima beans
- Assorted pom poms – I used the solid pink and yellow tinsel pom poms from this package
- 2 inch white pom poms
- Rice
- Assorted wood “Christmas cookie” shapes
- Assorted foam sheets
Directions:
Trace your wooden shapes onto different colors of foam sheets, add ribbon and pom poms for more details and fun textures for your little ones to find! It will become a puzzle to put together!
Set the wood pieces to the side and place the foam pieces and materials in the bottom of the tray. Cover with rice.
Start to make your Santa by forming the hat with the dyed red garbanzo beans, the face with the natural garbanzo beans and the beard with the lima beans. Add the face details!
The sensory bin ready to play with!
My daughter loved finding all of the foam pieces and matching them with the wood shapes. Check out my Instagram for a fun video tutorial on how I put this sensory bin together! ♥
