Bright and Colorful Cranberry Sensory Bin for Christmas

Christmas time is full of sensory experiences! The scent of Christmas trees and the smell of cookies baking, the taste of delicious treats, the soft touch of blankets as you cozy up for a movie, the sound of carols, and the sight of dazzling lights are all around us during the holiday season! If you’re a parent like me, I’m sure you love capturing sensory experiences into interactive activities for your kids. One of my favorite ways to turn sensory experiences into a learning activity for kids is by using sensory bins and bottles. This Cranberry Sensory Bin for Christmas is a super simple bin to put together and will keep your child entertained for hours. It captures some of the classic scents and sights of Christmas in a fun cranberry where kids can spend hours scooping, pouring, and stirring their way into the holiday spirit!

bright red and yellow cranberry and lemon sensory bin with water and pine tree clippings

close up photo of a small black and wire strainer held by a child in a water filled christmas sensory bin with lemons and cranberries

lemon, pine tree clippings and cranberries sensory bin filled with water photo shows a child scooping water with a measuring spoon

close up photo of a child scooping cranberries our of a christmas sensory bin filled with cranberries, lemons and pine tree clippings

photo of a child using a small strainer to scoop and pour cranberries in a christmas sensory bin

cranberry theme christmas sensory bin for kids contains water with cranberries, lemon slices, pine twigs, small bowl and strainer

Recommended Grade Level:

Preschool

Supply List
Coordinating Activities

Cranberry Sensory Bin for Christmas Supplies:

Bin
Cranberries
Orange Slices
Rosemary
Mini Strainer
Scoop or Spoon
Small Bowl
Water

You’re Going To Love This Cranberry Sensory Bin for Christmas!

There are so many wonderful things about this cranberry activity, but two of the best things are that it is easy to make and the materials are inexpensive! Sensory bins are such a simple and amazing way to let your child reap the benefits of sensory exploration. If you are focusing on sensory exploration with your children, we have tons of amazing sensory activities you can find here at Life Over C’s.

If you are new to making and using sensory bins, a simple one like this is a great place to start. Once you get comfortable making sensory bins, be sure to check out our list of Easy Rice Sensory Bin Ideas Kids Love!

Need More Fun Sensory Bin Ideas? Check Out Some Of Our Favorites:

Why Should I Use Sensory Bins With My Child?

There are so many benefits to using sensory bins with children! Here are just a few of the many reasons:

Fine Motor Skills: Sensory bins are an open invitation for kids to touch and manipulate materials. The materials in this sensory bin for Christmas are all different shapes and sizes, which is great because kids will have to open and close their hands and fingers different amounts to pick them up and play with them. As they are picking up the materials inside the bin and using the utensils like tongs, spoons, and measuring cups they will be strengthening their muscles and improving their fine motor skills.

Sensory Exploration: Sensory bins are so amazing for sensory exploration. You can fit lots of amazing materials into a bin and it contains the mess in one place. Children can use their sense of sight, touch, hearing, and smell to explore the contents of the bin and develop their senses. (Taste is also an important sense, but I don’t typically encourage my kids to eat or put the materials of sensory bins into their mouths!) Cranberries, oranges, and rosemary sprigs all have different textures and smells, and are perfect to have in a bin together to give a wide variety of sensory exploration opportunities.

Other Ways to Explore with Lemons and Oranges:

Language Development: Sensory bins like this Cranberry Sensory Bin for Christmas are great for sparking creativity and imagination! Will your child make soup or tea? Will they have a pretend Christmas lemonade stand? Maybe they will race the cranberries, orange slices, and rosemary across the bin! The possibilities are endless!

When kids are playing they love to talk to their friends and share ideas about what they are doing. This is so wonderful for language development. The more kids hear others speak and talk to one another, the more their language skills will strengthen and develop!

Even if your child is using this cranberry activity as an independent activity, you can help their language development by asking them questions, telling them the names of the materials they are using, and even talking about letter sounds with them (that is a cranberry, cranberry starts with c, can you make the sound the letter c makes?).

For more information about sensory bins and their benefits, check out this Web MD article about sensory bins!

35+ Christmas Math and Literacy Activities

this christmas pre-k printable math and literacy bundle has over 37 hands-on centers for pre-k and kindergarten. kids will love counting, using tracing cards, playing games and more!

Included in the Christmas Math and Literacy Pack

Play Dough Pretend Play Set
3 Sets of Christmas Clip Cards- Colors, Ten-Frames and Arrays
Class Set of Christmas Themed BINGO Ten-Frames
3 Sets of Christmas Counting Cards- Pumpkins, Leaves, and Squirrels
2 Christmas Graphing Dice Games with inserts for differentiated learning cubes
Line Tracing Cards for fine-motor practice
Line-Up Puzzles for Counting to 5 & 10
3 Matching Games- Pictures, numbers, and alphabet
Christmas Missing Number Cards up to 20
Christmas Ornament Ten-Frame Counting Cards
Tic-Tac-Toe
4 Sets of Tracing Cards for Writing Trays (uppercase, lowercase, number, shape)

3 Sets of Christmas Play Dough Number Mats- 1-10 Empty ten-frame, 1-10 Filled ten-frame, Numbers 11-20
3 Levels of AB Patterns- Continue the pattern, copy the pattern, build your own pattern
2 Sets of Counting to 10 Puzzles- Array, Ten-frame- Gingerbread House, Hot Cocoa and Ugly Sweater themes
3 Roll and Count Pages
4 Spin & Cover Games- 1-5, 6-10, shape, and picture matching
Christmas Visual Discernment Clip Cards-Largest, smallest, matching, doesn’t match
Trace, Write & Draw the Room
Sorting Mats Shapes, Colors and Numbers

Get the Christmas BUndle Here

Why Should I Use This Cranberry Sensory Bin for Christmas?

While there are so many amazing sensory stimulating activities for kids around the Christmas season, they can at times be overwhelming for young kids. This cranberry activity is a great way to help calm an overstimulated child! It can also be a great opportunity for collaborative play, can be used to entertain a child while you are checking items off of your to do list, or just add some sensory exploration fun to your Christmas learning activities this winter!

Materials You Will Need For Making This Cranberry Christmas Sensory Bin:

Bin
Cranberries
Orange Slices
Rosemary
Mini Strainer
Scoop or Spoon
Small Bowl
Water

Step-by-Step Instructions for How To Create a Cranberry Christmas Sensory Bin:

Step One:

Grab your sensory bin and fill it about ⅓ of the way up with water.

Teacher Tip: If you don’t have a sensory bin, a shallow plastic container or clear plastic storage container also works great for this activity!

Step Two:

Add your cranberries, orange slices, and rosemary sprigs to the bin. If you have other Christmas ingredients that you think would go well in this bin feel free to add them!

Teacher Tip: This is a great opportunity to get your little helper involved and let them count out cranberries, oranges, and rosemary as they add them one by one into the bin. So wonderful for one to one correspondence practice!

Step Three:

Add ladles, scoops, strainers, cups, and bowls and let your child get to the important (but very fun) work of sensory exploration!

Step Four:

Encourage your child to explore with their senses! What do the fruits feel like? What textures do they feel? What do the berries, fruit, and herbs smell like? What sounds do the materials make as they are squished, squashed, dumped, and poured?

Teacher Tip: Keep a small sample of the edible ingredients to the side and let your child taste them. You won’t want to them to eat directly out of the sensory bin, and this will hopefully help them to not try and sneak a bite of anything out of the bin!

Yay! You Made Your Cranberry Sensory Bin for Christmas! Now What?

Now that you put your sensory bin together it is time to add some fun utensils! This is where the true versatility of this bin comes in. You can grab a ladle, spoon, strainer, measuring cups, or any other utensils you have lying around and add them to this bin. Change out the utensils to keep your child coming back to this cranberry activity over and over again!

This sensory bin works great as an independent activity, a center activity, or if you have a large enough sensory table, it can be used as a small group activity. When two or more children are playing together with a sensory bin, lots of discussion and imaginary play can happen which is awesome for development!

Continue the Fun: Free Printable Christmas Scavenger Hunt

image with red background text overlay says [free christmas scavenger hunt] two photos of christmas scavenger hunt with christmas images to cross off

What Other Ways Can I Use This Sensory Bin for Christmas?

Practice counting with a soup recipe! (For example- give your child a bowl and tell your them to add two cups of water, three cranberries, one orange slice, etc…)
Work on color recognition as you are playing in this bin. What colors can your child find in the bin?
My children love to put their own fun twist on sensory bins. Allow your child to add some of their own special toys to this cranberry activity! My transportation loving son added a boat to this bin for moving the different ingredients around and my daughter added her tea set to make some pretend Cranberry Christmas tea!
Print and laminate Free Printable Christmas Tree Counting Cards or Posters or Free Printable Christmas Lights Counting Cards for 1-10. Use the cranberries as the math manipulative for one of these fun activities!
Have a scooping challenge! Can you scoop five cranberries? Can you scoop one orange and three cranberries? How many cranberries can you scoop in one motion?

More Opportunities For Sensory Exploration During Christmastime:

Create a Christmas Five Senses Book!
Easy Christmas Sensory Bottles for Preschoolers are great for sensory exploration.
Make an Easy, Adorable Penguin Theme Sensory Bottle for Kids.
This Christmas Tree Salt Painting is a fun art project that has a textured component to it!
Work on your sense of sight with this Free Christmas Scavenger Hunt Printable for Kids.
Kids will love making this Easy DIY Snowman Sensory Bottle for Preschoolers.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are frequently asked questions about this Cranberry Sensory Bin for Christmas:

How do I store this sensory bin?

Normally I would suggest putting a lid on a sensory bin and storing it for the next time you want to pull it out and use it. But, since this sensory bin has perishable ingredients in it, I would dump it out after a few days and add fresh ingredients to it.

What age are sensory bins appropriate for?

I love using sensory bins with preschoolers and kindergartners! That being said, you can use them for younger children under close supervision or let older kids participate if they seem interested! You know your child best and will be able to decide if this sensory bin would be right for them!

How should I supervise children using a sensory bin?

I always recommend closely supervising the use of sensory bins, especially with a bin like this where there are edible materials! Sit with your child as they are playing and ask them questions about what they are doing, sing songs with them, or let them lead the discussion as they are playing! They will love having your company as they play with this sensory bin!

What materials can I use for a sensory bin?

This cranberry sensory bin for Christmas uses water and edible Christmas ingredients, but you can really make a sensory bin using almost anything! All you need is a sensory bin filler and then a few extra accessories to go with it like spoons, measuring cups, tongs, or other utensils you have around your house. We love using rice, beans, chickpeas, and even coconut as sensory bin filler!

We Hope You Have A Merry Time With This Cranberry Christmas Sensory Bin!

We can’t wait to hear all about how you are using this Cranberry Christmas Sensory Bin in your home or classroom. Be sure to leave us a comment and let us know how much you are loving this easy cranberry activity!

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two close up photos of a cranberry and lemon christmas sensory bin for preschoolers text says [cranberry sensory bin activity for kids]

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