Get ready to engage your child’s senses and make a splash with sensory bins for summer!
In this blog post, we’ll dive into a world of sensory play ideas that are perfect for the sunny season. From exploring the textures of sand and water to discovering the sights, sounds, and scents of summer, these sensory bins will provide hours of educational and sensory-rich fun.
Let’s create memorable summer experiences with sensory play!
What are the Best Sensory Bins?
When it comes to sensory bins in the summer, keeping things simple can be a wise approach. The warm weather and outdoor environment already provide a wealth of sensory experiences for children to explore.
Opt for uncomplicated sensory bins that incorporate natural elements like sand, water, or a mix of both. Consider adding a few scoops, funnels, and containers for pouring and transferring activities.
Keeping the materials minimal allows children to focus on the textures, sounds, and movements of the natural elements, fostering a deep connection with the summer season.
By embracing simplicity, children can fully immerse themselves in the sensory play and enjoy the simplicity and beauty of the sensory experiences the summer brings.
How to Use Sensory Bins this Summer?
When creating a summer sensory bin for your child, it’s important to tailor it to their unique interests and preferences. By incorporating elements that they enjoy, you can create a sensory experience that truly captures their attention and engages their imagination.
Consider their favorite themes, such as ocean creatures, pirates, or camping, and incorporate related props and materials. For example, if your child loves animals, you can include small plastic figurines of their favorite creatures, along with sand or water to create a habitat for imaginative play.
By customizing the sensory bin to their interests, you create a personalized and meaningful experience that will keep them engaged and excited about exploring the sensory materials. So, whether it’s dinosaurs, princesses, or superheroes, infusing their favorite themes into the sensory bin will ensure a summer of sensory play that’s tailored to their joy and delight.
Get your Sensory Bin Here
31 Summer Sensory Bins for Kids
1. Bubble Foam Sensory Bin
Here’s an easy way to make a bubble foam sensory bin for your toddler using just a few common ingredients you probably already have at home
2. Frozen Flower Sensory Bin
Freeze real flowers into blocks of ice and invite kids to explore them as they melt. It’s a gorgeous, hands-on sensory activity that feels like science and art all in one.
3. Lego Water Table
Add LEGO bricks and minifigures to your water table for a fun and splashy STEM-inspired building experience. Kids can float bricks, make boats, and build right in the water.
4. Fizzy Ice
Combine ice, baking soda, and vinegar for a fizzy melting experiment that’s full of sensory magic. Kids will love watching the bubbles dance as they scoop and explore.
5. Fizzy Watermelon Sensory Bin
Turn a watermelon-themed bin into a fizzy science play setup with a baking soda base and vinegar “juice.” It’s colorful, squishy, and super satisfying for little hands.
6. Mystery Water Table
Add unexpected objects or surprises to a water table and cover it with bubbles or foam. Kids will love reaching in to discover what’s hidden underneath!
7. Ice Cream Water Table
Set up a pretend ice cream shop with scoops, cones, and bubbly water for hours of imaginative sensory fun. It’s sweet, silly, and perfect for hot summer days.
8. Bumblebee Sensory Bin
This yellow-and-black sensory setup includes pom poms, scoops, and tongs for fine motor practice disguised as bee-themed fun. It’s a buzz-worthy bin for little learners!
9. Ocean Sensory Bin
Bring the beach to your backyard with blue water, shells, sea creatures, and scoop tools. It’s a calming, splashy bin perfect for imaginative ocean adventures.
10. Ice Cream Cone Volcanoes
Mix baking soda and vinegar inside ice cream cones for an erupting volcano activity that looks good enough to eat. It’s messy, fizzy, and totally irresistible.
11. Ice Rubber Ducks
Freeze mini rubber ducks in ice cubes and let kids rescue them with warm water or squirters. It’s a fun mix of sensory play, fine motor skills, and pretend bath time.
12. Birdseed Kitchen Sensory Bin
Kitchen sensory bin using birdseed! Perfect indoor or outdoor summer sensory bin activity!
13. Bug Soup Sensory Bin
Add toy insects, flowers, and ladles to a water-filled bin to make the most playful (and not-too-creepy) bug soup. It’s silly, sensory-rich fun with a spring or summer twist.
14. Fizzy Flowers
Pour vinegar over frozen baking soda flower molds for a fizzy, blooming science experiment. It’s part sensory play, part simple chemistry, and totally magical.
15. Water Table & Pom Poms
Summer is officially here and our water table has become an everyday fixture in our backyard. Add Pom Poms for the best sensory experience!
16. Painting Ice Cubes
Painting ice cubes is not just a craft; it’s a mini adventure in color and creativity that my three kids absolutely loved!
17. Lemon Boats
Cut lemons in half, add sails, and float them in water for the cutest little lemon regatta. It’s a playful mix of science, sensory play, and summer fun that smells amazing too!
18. Lemon Oobleck Sensory Play
This zesty twist on classic oobleck uses lemon juice and cornstarch for a squishy, citrus-scented sensory experience. Kids will love the weird, goopy texture and the fresh lemony scent!
19. Rock Pool Water Table Sensory
Calling all young adventurers and marine explorers! Get ready to embark on an exciting underwater journey right in your backyard with a Rock Pool Water Table Sensory Activity!
20. Magic Sand Sensory Play
Never thought I would ever say this, but… welcome to the enchanting world of hydrophobic sand, where science meets sensory play in the most fascinating way!
21. Pool Noodle Soup Sensory Bin
This easy pool noodle soup is a great sensory play idea for toddlers and preschoolers. A fun way to play and learn with pool noodles this summer.
22. Ice Kitchen Water Table
Ice Kitchen Water Table is a great way to beat the heat this summer and to get the most use out of your water table with your toddler or preschooler!
23. Fizzy Sun Sensory Bin
Fizzy Sun: Summer STEAM Activity is an easy toddler and preschooler activity. Create a sun using baking soda!
24. Fizzy Ice Cream Shop Sensory Bin
Create this super fun and engaging Fizzy Ice Cream Shop Sensory Bin for your kids this summer using common household ingredients!
25. Outer Space Water Table Activity
With the weather heating up, keep your child engaged with their water table with this easy to set up Outer Space Water Table activity.
26. LEGO Car Wash Sensory Bin
LEGO Car Wash Sensory Bin is a fun and easy sensory bin that your toddler or preschooler will love! Build a car wash to wash trucks and cars!
27. Muddy Zoo Sensory Bin
Muddy Zoo Sensory Bin is a fun sensory zoo themed activity for toddlers & preschoolers. It’s the perfect sensory bin to take outside this spring or summer!
28. Rainbow Pouring Station Sensory Bin
Rainbow Pouring Station is one of those amazing sensory bins that your kids will love. Easy to set up and great for indoor or outdoor play!
29. Dandelion Water Table
Dandelion Water Table Activity is the perfect answer to a warm afternoon. If you have a child that loves to pick dandelions try this!
30. Shaving Cream Sensory Play
Shaving Cream Sensory Play is fun and easy sensory bin for kids to try this summer. Water plus a lot of shaving cream equals tons of summer fun!
31. Frozen Caps
Summer is the time to bring out all the water and ice activities that you have been saving.
32. Ice Rocks
When it comes to creating a sensory bin in the summer sometimes its fun to use what is already in your backyard or in your neighbourhood. For Ice Rocks we took a stroll over to our local beach to collect rocks and we came back with some pretty cool looking specimens!
33. Icy Letters
Looking to add a bit of letter learning to your summer play? Here is a fun and easy literacy sensory bin idea for you.
34. Pom Pom Water Sensory Bin
Pom pom water sensory bin is the most fun sensory bin ever and its so easy to setup! Add a few fine motor tools and you have an activity that will entertain for days!
35. Frozen Lego
The best sensory bin activities in the summer always involve something cool and wet.
36. Caps Kitchen
One of my favourite things to up-cycle are squeeze pouch caps. They are colourful and round and the perfect size for toddler and preschooler hands and adding them to a sensory bin is easy and fun!
37. Tea Bag Sensory Bin
Tea Bag Sensory Bin is a simple to set up sensory experience your toddler or preschooler will love. Be warned it is messy but it smells divine but your little one will LOVE it!
38. Number Dig, Wash & Match
If your toddler is anything like mine, she loves a good treasure hunt. Combine that with shaving cream and you have an activity made in toddler heaven on your hands!
39. Popsicle Colour Mixing Sensory Bin
Popsicle Colour Mixing Sensory Bin is a fun way to explore colour mixing in the summer!
40. Pom Pom Scoop
Super easy to set up counting activity using pom poms and water. Yes, you read that right. Pom poms and water or more accurately – pom poms IN water. I guarantee this concept alone will excite your toddler or preschooler!
41. Megablok Washing
This activity is great to do after the MegaBlok Painting process art activity. However, it can do done on its own. It is arguably just as fun if not more fun than the MegaBlok Painting activity.
42. Lemon Sensory Bin
Fill your bin with sliced lemons, yellow pom poms, and scoops for a bright, citrusy sensory experience. It’s perfect for summer and smells so fresh and fun!
43. Mermaid Sensory Bin
Bring under-the-sea magic to life with sparkly gems, shells, and mermaid figurines in a blue water base. This bin is full of shimmer, scoop play, and imaginative storytelling.
44. Cork Boat Sensory Bin
Float tiny DIY cork boats in a bin of water and invite kids to sail, race, and explore. It’s a simple STEAM activity packed with splashy fun and problem-solving.
45. Nature Soup Sensory Bin
Create a galaxy-inspired bin with black beans, stars, planets, and astronaut toys for out-of-this-world play. Great for fine motor skills and space-themed storytelling.
46. Pony Beads and Water Sensory Bin
Toss magnetic or foam letters into a bubbly water bin for some pretend alphabet cooking. Kids can scoop, stir, and practice letter recognition all at once.
47. Shapes Sensory Soup
Add toy insects, flowers, and ladles to a water-filled bin to make the most playful (and not-too-creepy) bug soup. It’s silly, sensory-rich fun with a spring or summer twist.
48. Outer Space Sensory Bin
Create a galaxy-inspired bin with black beans, stars, planets, and astronaut toys for out-of-this-world play. Great for fine motor skills and space-themed storytelling.
49. Funnels Sensory Bin
Add funnels, cups, scoops, and pourable materials like rice, sand, or water to your sensory bin and let kids experiment with filling, dumping, and transferring. It’s a fantastic way to build hand-eye coordination, early math concepts, and cause-and-effect skills—plus, it keeps them busy for ages!
50. Alphabet Soup Sensory Bin
Toss foam letters into a bubbly water bin for some pretend alphabet cooking. Kids can scoop, stir, and practice letter recognition all at once.
Learning Opportunities
Sensory bins have been amazing for my daughter’s vocabulary development. As time went by she started to do the same. So even now when she plays she will talk about what she is doing.
When we first started doing them when she was about 18 months old, I would describe everything in the bin such as how something looked, felt or smelt to how we were playing with it.
Water Tables and Sensory Play
40+ Amazing Water Table Ideas for Summer
Water tables are a fantastic sensory tool for summer play and exploration. Setting up a water table in your backyard or outdoor space opens up a world of sensory activities for children. From splashing and pouring to experimenting with floating and sinking objects, water tables provide endless opportunities for tactile and visual stimulation.
Children can use their hands, cups, and water toys to engage in pouring, scooping, and transferring activities, enhancing their fine motor skills. The soothing sound of water and the refreshing feeling of splashing around also contribute to a calming sensory experience. Water tables offer a safe and controlled environment for children to explore the properties of water, develop their creativity, and engage in imaginative play.
The most important thing is that sensory bins should be fun and stress free for you. And don’t worry if they don’t play with it for more than 10 minutes. My mother told me once nothing with little Kids is going to last long. So don’t make it complicated for you!
Here is a the list of simple but fun sensory bins for your toddler or preschooler!
Play2Learn Toddler & Preschool Programs for Curious Toddlers
There is no limit to your toddler’s energy and curiosity. That energy and curiosity although a joy can be challenging at times. Their interest in just about everything around them is what makes them great learners. One and two year olds can soak up so much just from their senses!
But as a teacher or parent that thirst for learning can be exhausting. That is why I created this toddler and preschooler program. To help you get the most out of this time with your curious toddler without having to come up with creative ways to play and interact with them.
Play2Learn for Toddlers includes 20 Units for toddlers. Each 2-week toddler unit has 20 super easy to set up and engaging activities for toddlers 18 months to 3 years.
Play2Learn Preschool which includes 20 Units for preschoolers. Each 2-week preschoolers unit has 20 unique and easy to set up and engaging activities for preschoolers 3 years to 5 years. That’s over 800 learning activities for your toddler and preschooler at your fingertips! So many ideas you and your child will never be bored again!
These toddler and preschool lesson plans and activities will definitely keep you and your toddler and preschooler busy playing and learning!
Click here for more information: Play2Learn
Book: Exciting Sensory Bins for Curious Kids
Did you know I wrote a book of sensory bins? Click here for more information Exciting Sensory Bin for Curious Kids. Or grab your copy at Amazon.
Boring afternoons are made exciting with awesome animal-based bins, like Salty Shark Bay or Yarn Farm. Pretend play bins like Birthday Cake Sensory Play or Bubble Tea Party encourage creativity and imagination. And your kids will have so much fun they won’t even know they’re getting smarter with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) activities like Sink or Float Soup, Magnetic Letter Hunt or Ice Cream Scoop and Count.
Designed for toddlers 18 months and up.
Book: Super STEAM Activity Book for Kids
Learning all about science, technology, engineering, art, and math sets kids up for scholastic success―and it can be so much fun! Watch kids enjoy building STEAM skills as they color friendly fish, help water find its way to tree roots, solve math problems with mazes, and more.
Find out more and grab your copy here.
Designed for preschoolers 3 years old and up.
Book: Big Book of Riddles for Kids
Riddle me this: What’s an exciting way to practice critical thinking while having a blast? The Big Riddle Book for Kids, of course! From hilarious puns to tough brain teasers, kids can build problem-solving skills with hundreds of riddles tha. t show them how to think outside the box.
- 350 riddles for kids—Have hours of fun with riddles, puns and jokes, and math and logic puzzles that’ll get their wheels turning!
- Level up their skills—Riddles get trickier as kids progress through the book, challenging them as they get better at solving puzzles!
- Double-check their work—Kids can check their answers in the back of the book with a handy answer key.
Help children expand their minds while having fun with this puzzle book for kids!
Designed for kids ages 6 years old and up.
TV Show: Curious Crafting
I’m so excited to share my crafting TV show Curious Crafting which launched in July 2022 on TVOkids and TVOkids YouTube! Season 2 aired in August 2023! My show was also nominated in 2023 for Best Live Action Preschool Series by the Youth Media Alliance Awards of Excellence.
Curious Crafting Season 1 is also now airing in Australia on ABC! Watch it here!
Set in the ultimate crafting space, Curious Crafting is a short form pre-school age series about the joy of making crafts. I lead a rotating cast of adorable little preschoolers (including my own) making magic out of common household objects.
In each episode we transform recycled items into magical crafts like a milk carton school bus, paper bag puppet or cotton pad turtle. The crafters learn and laugh their way through each activity while demonstrating what their young imaginations can create.
Curious Crafting shares the adventure and joy of making art with takeaway lessons for creating crafts at home.
This show designed for toddlers and preschoolers 2.5 years old and up.
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