Easter Sensory Bin Ideas for Preschoolers
This Easter sensory bin is a great way to get little hands moving while incorporating springtime fun. Preschoolers and toddlers flourish through the use of sensory activities because it’s a developmentally appropriate way for their brains to learn, sort, and process information, while still playing. Try out these Easter sensory bin ideas.
Easter Egg Sensory Bin Exploration
By the time Easter arrives, spring is in full swing. You spot eggs in the stores and can’t help but think of all the cute egg crafts just waiting to be made. There are a ton of ways to use eggs in your Easter lesson plans!
It just wouldn’t be Easter without egg activities! Easter eggs are something most preschoolers can identify with. They love those little plastic eggs hiding candy treasures. So why not get some extra use out of them and add them to your sensory bin for some bunny themed sensory exploration?
Easter eggs aren’t just for an Easter sensory bin, either! They fit in well with spring themes like baby animals, birds and nests, and life cycles. It’s one of my favorite materials to add to my spring sensory bins for toddlers because they really work those hand strengthening skills.
Frequently Asked Questions About Sensory Bins
Spring and Easter sensory bin ideas are endless! You can use any materials that relate to a spring theme. Stickers, pipe cleaners, pom-poms, cotton balls, silk flowers, rainbow-colored gems, little foam beads, or even use colored shaving cream (that one is the messy option!)
Incorporate springtime living things such as insects, baby animals, and of course, bunnies and chicks!
Grab some simple household items such as rice, dried beans, dry noodles or chickpeas (great opportunity to paint them green or pastel colors), or use dried oats. Feel free to incorporate the plastic Easter basket grass or paper shreds to create a sensory scavenger hunt too!
Note: If choosing food or small items, use extra caution to monitor your little ones as they play.
Sensory play provides a child with much more than just the feel of rice on their hands or the crinkled paper in their tweezers. Inviting children to play with sensory materials encourages academic, social, and emotional support during play.
Sensory bins help preschoolers develop skills like:
~ language
~ fine motor
~ cognitive development
Read More About the Importance of Sensory Input Here
Tips and Tricks for Creating Epic Sensory Bins
More Easter Activities
Sensory play is only one way to play this spring. Check out these other related activities.
The Benefits of Sensory Play in Preschool
Sensory play is a relatively new ‘phrase’ in the early childhood world, but it is a well-known and well-loved component of any toddler or preschool program! Young children that experience textures and experiment with different materials freely are building a variety of critical early learning skills.
Sensory play provides children with opportunities to:
- improve language skills, vocabulary, and social skills with other children or adults.
- develop fine motor skills as children grab, pinch, squeeze, pour, scoop, and roll. Play dough is an amazing fine motor skills workout!
- reduce anxiety and promote calm and soothing moments during the day. Playdough and homemade stress balls work wonders on distracting the body from anxiety. Calm down jars or winter sensory bottles make for a fun project and a break from a long hard day.
Easy Easter Sensory Bin for Preschoolers
This simple Easter sensory bin for preschoolers is the perfect opportunity to practice counting, sorting, and free play! Plus, you probably have the materials on hand and it comes together in just a minute or two. If not, Amazon or the dollar store will have everything you need to make this fun Easter sensory play activity!
And bonus! This use larger toy rabbits and this bins are safe for toddlers, too!
Materials
- Easter grass or paper shreds
- Plastic Easter eggs in various colors
- Artificial carrots
- Mini bunnies (mini erasers or small figures work great)
- Egg carton
- Bin or tray
- Fine motor tools (optional)
The Set Up
Set up for this Easter activity is literally a breeze! Add the grass to the tray or bin and spread out evenly to cover the bottom. Sprinkle the carrots and plastic eggs around the tray. Add the mini bunnies (feel free to hide these under the grass or inside the eggs for more interest).
How to Use the Easter Sensory Bin
Now for the fun part – invite the children to dive in! This is where the magic happens… each child will do things differently from the start. This little one took his found bunny right to the moon…on a rocket ship carrot! He tried to fit one, then two, then attempted three bunnies on his rocket ship carrot before they all fell off and he moved on to hiding the bunnies inside the plastic eggs.
The children were initially all about playing for the first few minutes. Feeling the grass, popping the eggs open and snapping them closed, mixing it all up, and hiding the various pieces entertained and excited for quite some time.
This sensory exploration time provided the perfect moments for me to ask them questions about the objects. They were mesmerized with how the carrots had a bumpy and rough texture, which allowed us to dive into a new word – twine. We discussed how the plastic eggs were smooth all over and the sound they made when we “popped” them open.
Then, they entered the counting phase. Two girls were trying to see how many bunnies they could fit inside a plastic egg. They worked independently to test their prediction of 6 bunnies and 8 bunnies, respectably. When it came down to it, those pointy bunny ears posed a problem and just 4 bunnies could fit inside and still be able to close.
One child started collecting the plastic eggs from other bins that were not being used and began putting them inside the egg carton. He couldn’t wait to announce that was trying to make a pattern!
Sensory Bin for Easter Develops
These sensory play opportunities and moments of trial and error with curious exploration encourage children to ask questions and think critically as the play. With the addition of fine motor tools, this activity can do double duty to build hand strength and develop fine motor skills, as well!
Plus, this activity could be modified to be literacy or math based, just by adding letters or numbers to the Easter eggs and inviting children to find the letter or match the uppercase to the lowercase. The options with this sensory bin are endless and your preschoolers will love digging in!
Easter Picture Books
High quality literature is so important for kids, and is a perfect addition to every preschool theme! We’ve hand-picked some of our favorite Easter books for you. There are books about jellybeans, spring, and of course Easter egg hunts!
Easter Sensory Bin
A simple Easter sensory bin with plastic eggs and Easter grass equals a whole lot of fun!
Materials
- Easter grass or paper shreds
- Plastic Easter eggs in various colors
- Artificial carrots
- Mini bunnies (mini erasers or small figures work great)
- Egg carton
- Bin or tray
- Fine motor tools (optional)
Instructions
- Add the grass to the tray and spread it out evenly.
- Add the carrots and plastic eggs to the tray. Incorporate the bunnies inside the eggs or hidden under the grass.
- Invite children to explore freely, sort, count, and answer questions about how they will use the materials.
Check Out These Other Easter Themed Activities!
I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
