If your toddler is as crazy for sensory activities as mine, you’ll especially love this creepy crawler bin.
It’s perfect for Halloween or really anytime of the year because let’s face it, kids LOVE playing with bugs!
This bin is also super easy and cheap to throw together from items in your cupboard, toy bin or a quick trip to the dollar store.
Pair it with some Halloween books and you’ve created hours of toddler fun!
Materials
- Black Bean Pasta (Traders Joes)
- Muffin Tray (Optional)
- Plastic Container
- White Sharpie
- Bugs
- Tweezers
Setup
- Fill a plastic container with Black Bean Pasta.
- Dump plastic bugs into your container and mix them with the pasta.
- Label each muffin tray compartment with a number.
Using the Sensory Bin
Before using the bin, it’s important to just let your toddler explore the bin and get familiar with the materials. On the first day using the bin, they are usually fascinated by the contents and you can make observations about how they interact with the materials such as:
- How are they using the materials? Hands, tweezers, or dumping out the contents?
- What conversations are they having about the materials?
- Are they asking questions about the materials?
- Are they constructing something new with the materials? Building? Sorting?
- How long do they engage with materials?
Counting and number sense can be incorporated into this activity using the muffin trays in different ways for both toddlers and early elementary children:
Option 1: Each bug is placed one by one in a muffin tin using tweezers. Once all the bugs have been placed in a muffin tray, they can count them one by one.
Option 2: Using the tweezers, bugs are placed in the muffin tray based on their corresponding numbers. Example: two bugs would be placed in muffin tray 2 etc. This will help with one to one number correspondence, which is the ability to match an object to a corresponding number. Great activity for older toddlers 4+.
Option 3: For older toddlers/ early elementary children, they can create addition number sentences with the bugs using two trays.
If you decide to try out this fun sensory activity, make sure to tag me in Instagram or leave a message here on my comment wall! Also, Pin the image below!
