Simple Sensory Bin

Confession: We have been watching a lot of Diego ("Go Diego Go!") and Curious George...okay, mainly the whole Treehouse channel and the children's section of Netflix. 

With Cameron's arrival, plus Gavin having a cold/flu, plus me needing some rest time, and now us helping Cameron fight his first cold (saddest thing ever is seeing your little newborn sneeze and cough), equals a lot of T.V. watching in our house. Anything to keep Gavin out of the fridge to grab a yogurt or whatever else he can get his hands on. (True boy. Always eating.) 

(Do you see how Cameron caught his cold? At least Gavin loves his baby brother!) 

As much as I love that curious little monkey (I'm referring to Curious George here) and tolerate that adventure loving Diego, enough is enough with the T.V. I wanted to find more activities that Gavin can do without resorting to Netflix. 

After making some birthday cards for family members and making towers with mega blocks, I remembered an idea that I had seen on Pinterest awhile ago. Sensory bins. 

This is one of my favourite memories from kindergarten, besides the huge playhouse that was in the corner of the classroom. Hello playing house! Our classroom had a huge plastic bin of dried rice that we played with. I loved the feeling of the rice falling through my fingers. With those great memories and pictures from Pinterest, I set to making my own for Gavin. It took maybe 2 minutes to put together. 

I grabbed an empty plastic container that is suppose to be to hold scrapbooking paper. I found some lentils that I always intended to make into soup and a few almost empty bags of rice. I poured them into the bin, found some spoons, small containers, cars, and a boat and sat Gavin down on the floor to have some fun! Messy. But fun! 

Make sure that you have the broom handy for this activity. Also, keep an eye on your toddler. You don't want them swallowing any dried rice...or throwing it around the room. Not saying that happened with us...just warning it could happen. :) 

An easy activity that cost me $0. 

Happy weekend!