"Snow" Sensory Bin

For the month of January, my son wanted to play in the snow.  But there wasn't any actual snow outside.  So I decided to bring the "snow" inside :)  Here is what we put in our "snow" sensory bin.  It was super easy to make and I used things that were already in my house.  Sensory bins do not require a lot of money or specific "lists". You can use anything you want and BE CREATIVE :)  For those that want a "list" here are pictures of what I used :)

"Snow" Sensory Bin 101 :)

My Steps in Pictures :)

1 - I got a medium size plastic bin.  Any sort of plastic container will work just fine. I picked up a whole bunch of these at Target and use them for all sorts of things. I love that they fit very nicely on my homeschool bookshelves.

2.  I grabbed some Polyfil from my sewing bag.  It was leftover from making LO's Halloween costume. I thought it looked like white fluffy snow.

3.  I grabbed some cotton balls from our medicine cabinet.  Definitely fit the "white and fluffy snowball" category that I was looking for.

4.  Then I grabbed some foam balls.  We bought these to do various crafts.  I also threw in the bin some white plastic cups.  I figured he could stuff "snow" in the cups.  He used them to be "cones" for ice cream ;)

5.  I had some random silver and white pipe cleaners in the craft drawer, so I threw those in.  I figured that he would come up with something fun to do with pipe cleaners.

6.  I also threw in some white coffee filters.  Basically because they were white and I was like "why not?" ;)

7.  And then we had some leftover candy canes and when I think of "snow", I think of Christmas.  And I had a random Pampered Chef scraper and some measuring cups and white plastic lids in my kitchen "junk" drawer, so I threw those in the box.  Measuring cups are ALWAYS a good thing for a sensory  bin.  Mixing and pouring and HUGE preschool concepts. :)  Oh, and I threw in some marshmellows.  I figured they were sticky and would be fun to play with ;)  Obviously we were not going to eat those afterwards ;)  [but if you check out my "Grotto" blog post which I will be posting soon, you will see that we recycled the marshmellows from this sensory bin to melt to make his grotto out of corn flakes]

8.  LO sitting proudly at his school table with his sensory bin.  I didn't let him see what I was putting in it so that it would be a surprise.  He is waiting in anticipation in this picture. ;)

9. LO is discovering the cups and coffee filters.  He decided that they were ice cream ;)

10.  LO's big "idea" was to make snowmen out of the foam balls. ;)  I gave him some toothpicks to hold them together.  If you are doing this with really little ones, I would not advise toothpicks.

And that is our "snow" sensory bin :)  LO loved it and played with it a lot. Stay tuned for my blog post on our next sensory bin which was on "slime, gel, and goop" ;)