Animals in Winter Sensory Bin
Winter is a great time to explore different themes. We have always loved looking for animals and animal tracks in winter. It is also fun to talk about which animals are around in winter and which are not.
I love using sensory bins to explore new things. We always have a sensory bin around. Yes, my girls are old but we still use them. They are great for calming down and a great go-to when they say they are bored.
This animals in winter sensory bin is a great way to look at tracks and have some fun.
We read the book Over and Under the Snow. It is one of my favorite about winter. It shows some of the animals awake and you get to see some of the tracks of the animals. Another good book to read is Animals in Winter. Each of the books is great to read about animals in winter and why some animals are not around.
What you need for this sensory bin:
- bin
- kinetic sand
- Tree Toob (we use the evergreen trees only)
- Nature Toob
- And various other Safari LTD figures
How we used this sensory bin
One of the first things my girls did when they saw the sensory bin was grabbed the sand and start to make it pretend to snow in the bin. They would hold the sand up and slowly let it fall from their hands.
After they finished with the pretend snowstorm, they packed down the sand. I love that the sand will pack down and stay in shapes. It is one reason I use it in sensory bins.
Then we had fun making animals tracks. One nice thing about the Nature Toob is that the animal’s feet look just like the real ones and leave great tracks. We had fun doing single lines of tracks and mixing up the trace. After you make the tracks you can compare the difference in them.
Next, we made balls of the sand in our hands and them put a single animal in the center. We did all the animals just to see what a single set of tracks looked like.
You can see how well the rabbit tracks show up in the sand. They show the big and small of the front and back.
The best part about this sensory bin is that you can just play in it. They are always fun to leave out for when kids in a break and gives fun sensory play at the same time.
If you wanted to have some fun you can add the animals that hibernate and bury them in the sand to show that they are sleeping.
Check out these other winter animal activites and printables.
Cassie – 3Dinosaurs.com