Natural Materials for Winter Sensory Bins

Sensory bins are truly magical for children! I know that my child will be playing and engaged for a good amount of time when I set up a sensory activity. Sensory activities are a great tool for children to practice creative thinking, use their imaginations, explore their senses, and practice fine motor skills. In this post I’ll discuss the value of natural materials in sensory play and some ideas for winter sensory bins.

Why include natural materials in sensory bins?

1. Natural materials provide children with endless play possibilities! I love the quote from Heaven on Earth by Sharifa Oppenheimer, that to children “anything can be anything”. A walnut shell can be a boat, a scoop, or a sled. A leaf can be a blanket, a raft, or a bed. My daughter used dried orange slices and rice to make pretend sandwiches. The simpler the item, the easier for a child’s imagination to transform it into different things.

2. Natural materials provide a rich sensory experience with different smells and textures to explore. Natural materials come with a variety of textures and have warmth to them that plastic and resin materials just don’t have. They also provide a rich olfactory experience: pine cones, dried orange slices, herbs, and cinnamon sticks provide cozy, soothing, and warm scents.

3. Providing nature-based materials for play nurtures a child’s connection with nature and the seasonal changes happening outdoors.

4. Nature-based materials are excellent for practicing story telling. Items from nature can be used to tell stories about things that kids experience outside in nature and re-tell stories from books that take place in nature. Sometimes I give my child a prompt by asking her to tell me a story that she can act out using her sensory bin supplies, such as:

   • something she has observed or experienced: tell me about what you see happening in our neighborhood now that it’s getting colder

   • something about animals in nature: tell me about an animal that’s getting prepared for winter

   • something a little magical: tell me about what fairies do when the seasons change from fall to winter

5. Natural materials can be very affordable, and often free if you use found objects from outside. Sensory bin supplies can really add up in price, but I have found that natural materials often provide even more fun than the supplies that I have purchased for sensory play. Things like pine cones, stones, seashells, acorn tops, and leaves can be collected from nature for free! Rice, beans, sand, and walnut shells are affordable and relatively easy to prepare for sensory play.

Natural sensory materials for the winter season

• Walnut shells

• Cinnamon sticks

• Dried orange slices - Cut oranges into 1/8'“ to 1/4” thick slices and dry in a 200°F oven for 2-3 hours.

• Dehydrated cranberries - Dry fresh cranberries in a 200°F oven for 5-6 hours until all moisture is removed. These come out dehydrated and dry, not like the sticky dried cranberries from a package.

• Pinecones

• Acorn tops

• Stones

• Sticks

• Fall leaves - Freshly fallen leaves can be preserved by dipping the leaves in beeswax. They will last all winter for sensory play and crafts!

• Wool balls or cotton balls that can be used as snowballs

• Bin filler ideas:

  • Rice bin filler- Here are the simple steps to dye rice (I used forest green food color with a drop of black and a drop of blue to darken the shade of green):

    • In a food storage container or bag, add approximately 4 cups of white rice + 2 Tbsp of white vinegar + a few drops of food coloring.

    • Close the bag or container and shake it up. Add more food coloring if needed to reach desired color.

    • Lay out the rice on a parchment lined sheet tray to dry for about 30 minutes to an hour.

  • Bin fillers that look snowy:

    • Dried white beans

    • Pearl couscous

    • Dried chickpeas painted white

Other items to include in a sensory bin

Items that can be used for story telling:

• Animals

• Dolls / peg people

• Wooden trees or wire brush trees

• Wooden loose parts

Items that can be used for practice pouring, scooping, and counting:

• Ten frame board or ice cube trays for sorting and counting

• Tongs

• Scoops

• Small bowls

• Small pitcher

What about the mess?

Sensory bins get messy! My first tip is to accept the mess. I know that can be hard!

As a parent it has taken me a lot of practice getting used to the messes.

We have a couple simple rules and I repeat them each time we do a sensory bin: I tell my child to do her best to keep the materials in the tray and that if a little falls on the floor by accident that it’s okay and we can clean it up. And the second rule is don’t eat anything from the sensory bin.

If the sensory bin gets out of hand (such as my child starts throwing the sensory materials around on purpose) then will take the activity away and try again another time.

With my daughter, I started with offering a bin of sand outdoors when she was around 18 months old. I didn’t start giving her rice or bean sensory bins until she was around two years old. For younger children, I would use a much larger bin for the same amount of sensory bin filler to prevent spilling. Now that my child is four, she does pretty well with smaller trays like the one shown in this photo. Some rice still fell on the table and floor, and we cleaned it up together. You can see the aftermath of this sensory tray in the photo below!

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I hope you found these ideas useful! I’d love to hear your ideas for sensory play in the comments!