Since Hayden started preschool, I love all of the suggestions his teachers have been giving me. Something I had not heard of before are sensory tubs. Of course, now that I’ve been researching it I’m finding that it’s a popular activity for toddlers!
Each month at school they have a different themed sensory tub and an everyday sensory tub. His teachers gave me suggestions and I also have found some great resources on the sites Preschool Express and No Time for Flashcards.
So, if you were living under a rock like me you may be wondering what is a sensory tub?
A sensory tub is a tub or bin that you fill up with various items to let your child be hands-on. Fill the tubs with different textures, so they can feel the different items and talk about them with you – what they are, how they feel, etc. You can hide different items within thee sensory tub so it’s great for exploring also. It seems like the possibilities are endless with a sensory tub.
The first sensory tub that I made was pretty simple. I went to the dollar store and bought a plastic bin, a bag of rice, various bags of different sized beans and a bag of small dinosaurs. Once I got home, I added everything together in the tub, hid some of the dinosaurs and grabbed some spoons and a few more toys.
Hayden was ecstatic! He spent the next 1.5 hours talking and having fun with the sensory tub!
This tub has been great for those cold, winter days and when you’re looking for something fun to do! I highly suggest checking out the No Time for Flashcards blog, she has so many ideas for different sensory tubs!
It snowed the other day and it was TOO cold, so I decided to bring the snow inside for a fun snow sensory tub. We tossed a few toys in and had fun for an hour playing with the snow, making mini snowman and talking about how the snow melts when it gets warm.
Here are two of my favorite tubs I found on Pinterest that I can’t wait to make!
Source: countingcoconuts.blogspot.com via Melissa on Pinterest
Source: theimaginationtree.com via Melissa on Pinterest
What kind of sensory tubs do you make?
This blog post is sponsored by Giraffe Childcare.
We stick to rice, beans, and pom poms mostly as a filler at our house lately. A great tip is to put a shower curtain liner on the floor and have your child sit on it and play with the sensory tub. Then when they are finished you can just fold up the shower curtain liner and take it outside to shake it. It doesn’t contain ALL of the mess, but it helps.
Also, we sell many themed sensory tubs at my store, Time for Tots.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TimeforTots?section_id=7354168
ps How do you get that connect bar that is on the edge to go up and down as you scroll?
yes, sensory tubs are awesome! We used to do those ALL THE TIME with my kiddos when they were younger. We did everything from water to sand to rice to rice krispies to popcorn kernels and beans – anything we could think of! My oldest has Autism so we pretty much tried expose him to as many textures as we could. He really loved rice and couscous. At one point he wanted a whole tub full of slime. ewwww. lol
I just posted about ours a couple days ago. So far we have only done rainbow colored rice and snow (cotton balls) since the themes at school this month all relate to snow we are sticking with the snow tub until the end of the month then we are switching to valentine’s day and dinosaurs to finish off February.
Another blog that has a TON of awesome sensory tub ideas is https://countingcoconuts.blogspot.com. She has a ton of great ideas.
I was not aware of sensory tubs until I started graduate school to get a MAT in Early child. When we visited an elementary school and I first seen the tubs I did not understand them, but once the teacher explain them to me I begin telling all my family members about the benefits associated with their learning process.
I apparently live under a rock as well, because I thought this was some sort of bathtub before reading the post. lol
This sounds like a pretty cool concept, and Little Rocker LOVES touching and seeing new things. I think we’ll try this with thye boys soon.
Wow, I have never heard of these! I think this is a fabulous idea and we are definitely going to make one for Adam.
We love sensory tubs. We have used sand,water, ice, colored rice, cheerios, shaving cream, pasta so many things as fun fillers.
Great ideas! I haven’t brought myself to make one yet, because I keep thinking about messes…but it is a great idea!
I recently turned my sand/water table in to a two sided sensory table & the kids love it! I’ve just posted a picture of it on Pinterest.
Carrie – I would love a link to that. Yep, I think I have been living under a rock. I know nothing of sensory tubs. I did one time fill a big Tupperware with cheerios. He had a blast messing around and filling up the cups and bowls with them…
Emily I wish I could take credit for this but so many of my great ideas come from my daughter who’s in a wonderful Moms group.
She doesn’t have a sand/water table so she uses big plastic washable bins. Her newest was to fill a tub with snow & give the kids water diluted with food coloring in little bottles (with little pointed tops) and allowed them to color in the snow! My grandsons LOVED this.
Another time she just placed a big bowl in the bin and made oobleck (cornstarch and water) & added food coloring & let them play with it with their hands. Yes, their hands were slightly stained but it wore off with a few hand washing.
This is the link to my sensory table: https://pinterest.com/pin/102738435219158246/
I found that if I leave gummy candy exposed for a few weeks it becomes rock hard & it a great addition to the table, that’s what those blue sharks are!
********** Please do not let children that are still “mouthing” their toys to play with small items! Everything in my sensory table will choke a child so I’m very careful with this. My grandson just had a friend from preschool drop a penny down his throat & rescue literally opened his throat on his parents living room floor to save his life, he’s 4 and was only “smelling” it!
My children’s daycare/preschool has one of these in each room starting with the 2-year-olds. My son has always LOVED them and never wanted to change “centers” when he was at the sensory tub. They rotate out with the seasons as well, so they currently have cotton ball snow and fish-tank nets to scoop it up with.
Greate article. Keep writing such kind of information
on your blog. Im really impressed by it.
Hello there, You’ve done an incredible job. I’ll certainly digg it and for my part recommend to my friends.
I’m confident they will be benefited from this website.