Valentine’s Day Sensory Bins and Fine Motor Activities

It’s time!! I love getting to switch out our sensory bins with new goodies for a new month or holiday! Valentine’s Day just might bring my favorite bins, and I’m super excited to share some of them with y’all today!


Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin

Our Valentine’s Day sensory bin is filled with dry white beans, Valentine’s Day table scatter, pompoms, and tons of mini erasers!

I’ve found that making new themed or seasonal sensory bins is super simple and inexpensive if you just take the seasonal colors from the materials you already have! So that’s exactly what I did with our supplies! We’ve had these materials for years (shop Hobby Lobby’s seasonal sale for fun items!) and we’ll be able to use these materials for so many activities!


Puffy Sticker Color Sort

Every season, I stock up on seasonally-themed puffy stickers when they go on sale at Hobby Lobby. We use these stickers for SO many activities! They make such fun manipulatives and add so much seasonal spark to our sensory bins.

Some of the ways we use our puffy stickers include color sorting, image sorting, pattern making, counting, and more!


Valentine Puzzles and Matching Mats

One of the very first sensory bin resources I created for LG were these handy little puzzles and matching mats. It was a great way for us to transition our free sensory bin play to academic practice! Using these mats LG practiced her fine motor skills while also working on matching, visual discrimination, and problem solving!

CLICK HERE to learn more about these Valentine’s Day Matching Mats & Puzzles.


Valentine Preschool Skills Matching Mats

These Preschool skills matching mats were created once LG grew out of her sensory bin puzzles and matching mats! She was ready to move on to other skills, but really loved the style of matching mats. These are still some of our favorite activities to work on!

This set includes 5 matching mats! Practice identifying letters, beginning sounds, counting, shapes and colors!

CLICK HERE to try a FREE sample of our Valentine’s Day Matching Mats!

CLICK HERE to learn more about our Valentine’s Day Preschool Skills Matching Mats.


Valentine Color Sort

Never underestimate the power of a super SIMPLE sensory bin activity! I found these little bowls on sale at the grocery store one day a few years ago, tossed them in LG’s sensory bin, and BOOM. She began color sorting like crazy! To this day, color sorting is one of her favorite activities to do independently! This has led to all sorts of sensory bin fun, like cooking up “soups”!


Valentine Preschool Skills Clip Cards

If you’re looking for a way to practice fine motor skills without sensory bins, clip cards are the perfect choice! Pinching the clothespins gives kiddos such a great fine motor workout, while still practicing common Preschool skills! I also love using these with LG as an informal assessment to see how she’s doing on each skill without causing much pressure. While I’m assessing her, she thinks she’s just playing!

This set includes clip cards for upper/lowercase letters, letter identification, beginning sounds, number identification, counting, colors, and shapes.

CLICK HERE to learn more about these Preschool Clip Cards!


Valentine Play Dough Tray

Last but certainly not least is one of our favorite activities – a Valentine’s Day play dough tray! Play dough is pure magic when it comes to practicing fine motor skills, and the possibilities for play come endless!

We’ve been loving homemade play dough lately, but we had SO much pink, purple and red PlayDoh containers left that I just grabbed those for this theme’s tray! Then I added some cookie cutters, gems, little unicorns, and a few other goodies so that LG could let her imagination run wild!


Valentine STEM Tray

Holy moly! This $5 Valentine’s Day craft jar is a STEAL at Target! It came with all of the goodies included in our black, Dollar Tree party tray. These materials are perfect for making a STEM tray in one simple step! LG has had so much fun making all sorts of creations!


Valentine Fine Motor Tray

This Valentine’s Day themed fine motors tray is probably my favorite resource for the month! I’m trying something a little different for this theme – we’re keeping as many of our fine motor activities in this ONE tray as possible! That way everything is in one spot when we need it! This tray includes TONS of activities!

  1. We have lots of little “scrap” pieces of paper in Valentine’s Day colors. These bits are perfect for “tear art” activities like the hears in the top left picture. Simply tear off the cover and the rest of the heart is sticky and ready to go! (We found these at Hobby Lobby!)
  2. We’ll be creating tons of Valentine’s Day cards with this tray! LG has tons of crayons, stickers, paint sticks and more to choose from! I also wrote lots of names so that she can personalize her cards for friends and family. (This is a great way to practice handwriting and spelling!)
  3. Beads are a fabulous fine motor practice tool! I tossed a bunch of Valentine’s Day colored beads in a section of the tray with some pipe cleaners and pattern strips to make a quick pattern practice activity!
  4. And of course we’ll be using this tray during our worksheet practice time (we love to color our answers!) and for plenty of free art time!

CLICK HERE to download the Valentine heart pattern strips for FREE!


Valentine Fine Motor Printables

You can find lots of other fine motor skills practice printables in our Valentine’s Day Math and Literacy Centers for Toddlers and Preschoolers!

CLICK HERE to learn more about our Valentine’s Day Preschool Centers!


I hope these sensory bins keep your little ones engaged and entertained this Valentine’s Day! Looking for some other Valentine’s Day-themed Preschool activities? Check out tons of activities by CLICKING HERE!

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