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March is just around the corner, which means it’s time for some St. Patrick’s Day learning activities and crafts. We love to engage in a variety of learning activities and crafts centered around St. Patrick’s Day. Our favorite activity is our St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin. This easy and inexpensive activity invites learners of all ages to explore and play. Both my toddler (2) and my preschooler (4) find ways to enjoy the materials found within the sensory bin. I typically leave this sensory bin set up for the month of March, using it for a variety of learning activities to keep it interesting for my little learners. So let me tell you more about how to set up a St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin for your children before I start telling you all the ways you can use it.
What’s in Our Sensory Bin?
I use an under the bed plastic storage container with a latching lid for sensory bins. You can find these at Target or Walmart. I also recommend laying a towel out underneath the sensory bin. This makes for easy cleanup once the play and learning conclude.
Usually when I plan to set up a sensory bin for my toddler and preschooler, I take a trip to the Dollar Store. Most of the supplies you need can be found at the Dollar Store.
I also look around my house for items to include in the sensory bin! I look through my craft supplies and the kids toys. For this particular sensory bin, I focused on the color green. The colors green and yellow are great for a St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin.
Some kids toys I’ve included in our sensory bins are shape puzzle pieces, duplo blocks in specific colors, play kitchen food, and animals. I didn’t use any of these this time around, but you could definitely include green duplo blocks in different sizes and green vegetables and fruit from the play kitchen food. These items would spark lots of conversations as your kids explore and find them. For my toddler, focusing on a color in the sensory bin is perfect for him 🙂
Our St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin was filled with the following things:
- Green Split Peas
- Green Dyed Rice
- Green Dyed Chick Peas
- Green Dyed Elbow Macaroni (or pasta of your choice)
- Green Pom Poms
- Gold Coins
- Mini St. Patrick’s Day Erasers
- Foam Shamrocks
Dying the rice, chick peas and pasta was a fun project and very easy to do. We just used paint to dye everything and set out to dry completely. My preschooler helped me with this project. We dyed an entire bag of rice, splitting it up to do all the colors. We also dyed pasta in different colors so we were set for future sensory play opportunities. I recommend the method shared by Tammi over at Active Littles. She shares the quickest way to dye rainbow rice and how to dye pasta noodles using paint and hand sanitizer. Both of these methods worked really well and I loved how vibrant the colors turned out.
Additional items I included in our sensory bin, which are tools that invite exploration while building essential fine motor skills are:
- Plastic Sand Rake
- Gator Grabber Tweezers
- Plastic Cups or Bowls
- Plastic Spoons or Ice Cream Scoops
These tools invite your toddlers or preschoolers to scoop, pour, sort and fill containers and dig for treasures. In the case of the St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin, my toddler and preschooler enjoyed finding the mini erasers and gold coins. My toddler is obsessed with filling a plastic cup or bowl and pouring it into another container.
How Do We Use Our Sensory Bin?
When I first put out a sensory bin for my toddler and preschooler, I simply let them explore. We talk about what they find and what they notice about the bin. There is lots of conversation and play!
Find and sort the different items in the sensory bin into categories. The erasers work really well for this since there are a few different ones!
Counting the items found within the sensory bin is probably one of the best ways to use it. How many gold coins do you find? How many green pom poms do you find? How many rainbow erasers do you find? When placing these items in the sensory bin, you can use different amounts of each. Then, after your child counts how many, discuss the concept of more and less. Which item has more? Which item has less?
To help with number recognition, use a deck of playing cards or number flashcards. You can also use a large foam dice. Your child rolls the dice and identifies the number. Then have him/her show that number by counting out an item of choice from the sensory bin.
Comparing the size of items is another way to use the sensory bin. Talk about which item is the smallest and which item is the biggest. Gather a few items from the sensory bin and guide child to put in order from smallest to biggest or biggest to smallest.
Building patterns is another fun activity to do with your preschooler. Use different items found within the sensory bin to build a variety of patterns.
How Do We Extend the Sensory Bin?
If you are looking for even more ways to extend the learning and fun, be sure to check out our St. Patrick’s Day Early Learning Activity Pack. This early learning activity pack is perfect for hands-on learning about St. Patrick’s Day while building essential math and literacy skills. It focuses on letters, numbers, counting, shapes, colors, and vocabulary. It includes lots of hands-on learning for your little learners.
The following skills are included in this pack:
- Building Vocabulary
- Writing Lowercase Letters
- Uppercase Letter Shape for G, L, R
- Beginning Sound Sort for G, L, R
- Matching Uppercase and Lowercase Letters in SHAMROCK and RAINBOW
- Number Recognition
- Counting
- Using a Ten Frame
- Comparing Numbers
- Subitizing
- Patterns
- Rhyming Words
- Picture Matching Game
- Picture Puzzles
- Color Sorting
- Shape Building
Many of the activities work really well with our St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin! You can hide the number and letter shamrocks in the sensory bin for your learner to find and identify. My toddler enjoyed finding the different St. Patrick’s Day pictures and matching them. As you talk about the pictures he/she is finding, you are helping build knowledge of St. Patrick’s Day as well as vocabulary.
Extend the learning even more by snuggling up to read one or a few St. Patrick’s Day picture books. I have pictured a few of our favorites below. Be sure to click on the image to find your child’s next St. Patrick’s Day book 😊 We love bringing out special holiday books each month. Every month feels like Christmas because I bring out books my kids haven’t seen in a year. We usually spend the first few days reading ALL of them! Then we have our favorites that we read over and over and over again throughout the month of March.
Check Out This Related St. Patrick’s Day Post
Thanks!