Turkey feathers, pumpkins and pies – OH, MY! Thanksgiving has arrived and it brings so many fun, festive activities! One of our favorite activities for little learners, especially during the holidays, are sensory bins! So today, I’m thrilled to share our favorite way to do this – our Thanksgiving toddler bins!
Table of Contents – CLICK to jump ahead!
Thanksgiving Theme Sensory Bin
One of the easiest ways to add excitement and hands-on learning to your preschool week is with a themed sensory bin. Since the activities in our Thanksgiving toddler bins incorporate a sensory bin, so it’s best to knock out the preparation early on! Our Fall sensory bin is always a hit—it’s simple to put together and offers tons of playful learning opportunities! Here’s how I like to set ours up!
FIRST, gather your materials. I like to use a plastic storage bin with a lid so I can cover and store the bin once it’s prepared. Choose your filler, like the dry oats we use in ours. Something about the oats really makes all the Fall colors in our Thanksgiving bins POP and gives children a very unique texture to experience. Once you’ve chosen your filler, fill your storage bin as much as you feel comfortable with (knowing each individual child can handle working with different amounts of materials).
NEXT, grab some extra Fall themed items like plastic apples and pumpkins, faux leaves, colorful pompoms, etc. These items make the perfect backdrop for the printable items in our preschool Fall pack! Scatter them throughout your sensory bin filler and watch the theme really come to life!
FINALLY, choose a space that you feel comfortable using the sensory bin with your child. I tuck ours away in our homeschool room with the rest of our Preschool manipulatives, and keep our sensory bin blanket nearby for when it’s time to get to work. The rule with our bins – everything stays on the blanket! This makes clean up SO much easier.
READY, SET, PLAY!!! When your sensory bin is not being used for the printable activities in our Thanksgiving toddler bins, allow children to explore freely! Watch them scoop, pour, dig, and more! I love taking our bin our when I need a little extra quiet time for homeschooling an older child, or honestly if I just need an extra minute to sip my hot coffee!
Matching Bins
If you’re just starting out using sensory bins with your littlest learners, our Thanksgiving toddler matching mats are the best place to start! These 3 activities are a very low pressure way to introduce children to sensory bin activities. To use, encourage children to choose Halloween themed picture cards from their sensory bin. Help them identify the pictures on their cards and find the matching pictures on the matching mat. To complete the activity, children should have all of the pictures on their mat covered with their match!
While you’re exploring the cards with children, encourage them to identify colors they see, discuss the names on the objects (which helps build seasonal vocabulary) and chat about where your kiddos have seen these items in real life! Making real world connections is such a great way to make vocabulary stick!
Puzzle Bins
The other 3 activities in our Thanksgiving toddler bins are our puzzle bins. We LOVE puzzles! But sometimes starting out with a jigsaw puzzle is a little too abstract for little learners. So these activities take the same concept of the matching mats and give children a helpful visual for completing their puzzles.
Each of the 3 puzzles in our Thanksgiving toddler bins also show common Thanksgiving scenes, giving you lots of opportunities to discuss the seasonal vocabulary as you explore together!
Let’s hang out!
I hope this post helped you get a better look at our Thanksgiving toddler bins! Got questions? Let me know! I’d love to chat and get to know you better! You can find us below in some of our favorite places to hang out. Can’t wait to chat with you about your Preschooler’s learning journey!
SAVE THIS POST FOR LATER!
Was this post about our Thanksgiving toddler bins helpful? Make sure you can come back to this post as much as you need by saving it for later on Pinterest! Click the image below to save this pin to your Thanksgiving Preschool Activities board! Then, CLICK HERE to read about more of our favorite Preschool November activities!
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