Colors of Fall Sensory Bin for Preschoolers

Despite the fact that it has been over 80 degrees for the past few days, the leaves on our trees here are quickly changing colors and falling to the grass below. So it’s a perfect time to be talking about the colors of fall for #playfulpreschool this week.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out the #playfulpreschool hashtag for great weekly, themed ideas for your preschool.

If you aren’t aware, I have a special needs preschooler. According to her developmental assessment that was completed on Monday, she has the cognitive abilities of a 25 month old and the speech abilities of a 21 month old. As the pediatrician told me at our appointment that Shiloh was not ready to understand colors, I wondered what I would share with you for this week’s colors of a fall theme.

While Shiloh isn’t ready to understand the concept of what colors actually are, she can still benefit from exploring the colors and the beautiful textures of fall.

I tossed together some dyed pasta in yellow, deep purple, and brown and laid it out in a cardboard tray. Usually I use a large plastic bin, but I thought the cardboard tray would provide a deeper feeling with the fall colors.

Then I added in some acorns and some silk leaves.

I also provided a small scoop, a tiny bowl and some mini-muffin liners for some open-ended exploration.

Lastly, I threw in a large foam die just for fun. Shiloh also doesn’t understand one-to-one correspondence, but it does make a fun addition to sensory play. (I played around with it and my 1st grader to get her ready for some addition that we’re going to do with the dice and acorns tomorrow.)

I showed Shiloh how to roll the die and then placed the correct number of acorns into the small bowl. She wasn’t very thrilled, but I think that’s because she wanted to be at the neighbor’s house playing on their slide…

She was, however, very excited to practice her scooping and pouring skills with the small scoop and mini-muffin liners.

She also explored the textures of the acorns.

Most preschoolers would be ready to talk about the different colors included in the sensory bin. You could also walk around your yard talking about the different fall colors that you see, collecting natural items to add to your sensory bin.

We could have added lots more acorns since a squirrel decided that he wanted to store his stash in our neighbor’s mailbox, but my 1st grader stole them all for herself after we helped clear them out so the postman wouldn’t have squirrel problems!