We had lots of sensory bin fun with this activity!! So simple to put together, but my daughter played with it for hours and cried when I put it away at bedtime! How’s that for a winner?!?! This fruit and vegetable hunt farm sensory bin is a super fun way to talk about fruits & veggies, planting, harvesting and to build matching skills.
Materials we used for the Fruit and Vegetable Hunt Farm Sensory Bin:
Paper
Laminator
Plastic bin: shoe box sized
Black beans
Safari Toobs: Fruits & Vegetables and Farm
Usually we use a much larger plastic box for our sensory activities, but we’ve been having issues with Shiloh getting over-excited and throwing handfuls of sensory materials, so I thought it would be best to try a smaller bin. We took a break from sensory bins for a while due to the throwing, but she really does love playing with them, so I am slowly reintroducing under close supervision.
I’m all for looking past the mess when an activity is going well (we’ve brought out the glitter again this week!), but I also want her to learn how to respect her work.
To prep: Print the Fruits & Vegetables Matching mat and cards found below and laminate. Then put the clear side of the Clear Velcro dots on top of each picture on the mat.
To make sure that the Velcro dots line up, I always attach the two sides together and then press the matching card on top. Otherwise, they rarely match up and that drives me crazy.
Then, I filled the shoe box with a gallon of black beans. I’m not sure how much that is in weight because I’ve had these beans stored on our shelves getting reused for over a year. (I actually have two gallon bags full, but only needed one for this box.)
Then, I placed the fruit and vegetable cards into the black beans. I pushed some of them down below the surface, so that she would have to dig for them.
And then I decorated the bin with the figures from the Safari Toobs.
Shiloh dug around in the farm sensory bin to find the matching cards for her mat. She loves velcro, so she enjoyed sticking them on the mat.
She filled up the mat. Then asked for all the cards to be taken off, so she could “plant” them and start all over again.
This time her imagination took over! The farmer helped dig out the vegetables. He loaded them on his tractor and drove them to the mat.
And somehow a horse got buried… and needed to be rescued.
She wouldn’t even stop to eat supper. (She did stop to eat cake though. Yum!)
And then went back to playing until bedtime.
5 hours people.
5 hours.
We will be doing this again!!
Click Here to Get the Fruit & Veggie Hunt
More ways to learn about fruits & vegetables from the #TeachECE Team!
Fruits and Vegetables Beginning Sound Clip Cards by Mom Inspired Life
Describing Fruits and Vegetables-Learning About Adjectives by Capri + 3
Sorting Fruit and Vegetables by Color by Powerful Mothering
Potato Printing Tessellation by Rainy Day Mum
Fruit and Vegetable Hunt Farm Sensory Bin by Life Over C’s
Writing about Fruits and Vegetables by The Educators’ Spin On It
Nicolette says
this turned out great! and strangely i have yet to try a black bean sensory bin!
Kim says
We’ve used it for a lot of things including outer space!
Tricia says
This is so cute! I love the card idea. I may have to borrow that idea for some of our sensory bins I have made. My son loves his construction site bin, so I’m sure he’ll love this one! Thanks for sharing!
Jodie says
Love how hands-on this is!
Danielle says
This is a great idea! My daughter is very into matching right now, so this is perfect for her!
Theresa says
What a fun sensory bin. I love that you added a matching component!
Renae says
This is fabulous! I’m going to have to buy the fruit and vegetable Safari Toob now. Lol. Thank you for all of the other great resources as well.
Faye says
What size Velcro dots did you use? Amazon has millions of sizes LOL
Kim Staten says
I think 1/2″ or 3/4″ would be perfect!