We’re continuing on with Butterfly Theme Week today with sensory bins. I’m going to share with you 5 butterfly bins I have made for my own children (not all of them were made for this theme week but they are all butterfly themed), as well as 5 butterfly bins other bloggers have made and which I have derived inspiration for my own bins from.
The base in this bin is rice dyed and scented with Duncan Hines Frosting Creations- cotton candy. Smells fantastic. The silk butterflies are from the floral aisle of Dollar Tree. There are 3 measuring cups not only for scooping and pouring but also to sort the three different colors of butterflies into. I decided to try something new, instead of chopsticks or tongs for picking up the butterflies I included clothes pins.
This bin is great for children who still mouth as everything in it is either edible or too large to swallow. The base is dry fruit loops cereal which come in the 6 colors of the rainbow. There are measuring spoons for scooping and a 6-cup muffin tin for sorting. Inside of the muffin tin are our counters for butterfly theme week. I dyed bow-tie pasta to create these counters: 1 red, 2 orange, 3 yellow, 4 green, 5 blue, 6 purple.
This bin is my personal favorite: life cycle of a butterfly bin. Along the top I’ve lined up large cards from our butterfly life cycle nomenclature card set. The base is pinto beans (though in hind sight I wish I had used moss). The eggs are clear glass gems. The caterpillars are various sizes of wooden beads on pipe cleaners. There are silk leaves for the caterpillars to eat. One caterpillar is already wrapped in a chrysalis, there are more ribbon pieces to wrap the other caterpillars. At the end we have the silk butterflies seen in the first bin.
This has to be the simplest butterfly bin we have made. All it is is scented playdough, foam flowers, plastic butterfly hair clips, and a set of chop sticks. The children enjoy playing with playdough so this bin went over well enough with them but there is much room for improvement. Perhaps some silk flowers or pasta butterflies, pom poms, sorting cups, butterfly shaped cookie cutters…really anything to add either another texture or add another means of manipulating the playdough.
Pink and Blue butterfly color sort. Despite how simple it is, I really like this bin and so did the children. The base is green foil shred (like the kind for filling gift bags and baskets). Two cups, one pink and one blue, both have various shades of matching colored pom poms inside of them. Scattered throughout the foil shred are pink and blue plastic butterfly hair clips. The children clipped the butterflies to the foil shred, mixed the pom poms into the shred, sorted all the items by color, etc..
Here are links to 5 butterfly bins that other bloggers have posted about:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Bin from Imagination Tree
Another Very Hungry Caterpillar Bin from Lightning Bug Literacy
Lifecycle of a Butterfly Bin from Parenting With Crunch
Simple Butterflies and Flowers Bin from Jada Roo Can Do
Simple Butterflies and Beans Bin from Little Bins For Little Hands
They are in no particular order as I think that all 5 are just grand in their own ways.
If you have blogged about a butterfly sensory bin you’ve made, please link it in the comments. I’d love to see what others have done with this fun theme!
Suzy Homeschooler 