Sensory

Away In A Manger Christmas Carol Sensory Bin (with Egg Cartons!)

Colleen Beck OTR/L

Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

by Colleen Beck OTR/L
December 4, 2015

This time of year, we love our Christmas carols. (Actually, we seem to sing them year-round. During the Christmas season, though, they are on re-play!) We joined bloggers from all over in creating a sensory bin based on Christmas carols. You can see all of the bloggers and their Christmas carol-related sensory bins here. This is a Christmas sensory bin that kids love to use in holiday play activities. You can check out all of our Winter sensory bins as well.

We decided to create a sensory bin around one of our favorite Christmas carols, “Away in a Manger”. It’s a song that my kids love to sing and one that brings memories of Christmas sing-a-longs and church pageants. This nativity sensory bin used something that we love to craft with: egg cartons!

Check out these Christmas Fine Motor Activities for more creative ways to work on fine motor skills and address development of skills this Christmas season.

Away in a Manger Christmas Carol sensory bin. With egg cartons!

Egg Carton Nativity Sensory Bin

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This sensory bin was easy to put together. Pull out your paint
and glue and a few recycled egg cartons, because this was fun to make AND play with.

My daughter helped me paint egg carton sections with different colored paints (I love these
for their bright colors.) and I added the face details. We glued on parts to the people. like adding a gold pipe cleaner
halo to the angel, white crafting pom poms
to the lamb, and sparkly spangles to the three kings.

Use a permanent marker
to add facial features.

We used another egg carton to build the stable, and a recycled paper tube to make the manger.

And it was time to play. (Turn on “Away in a Manger” while you play!)

Away in a Manger Christmas Carol Sensory Bin

We used corn and black beans to create a sensory bin filler. It was a cool medium because we could create hills and mounds like the landscape that Mary and Joseph may have crossed to get to the stable.

We scooped and smoothed the corn as we pretended our nativity scene (and sang Away in a Manger).

This donkey looks a little more like a monkey…But it worked for us! He was pals with the pig and the overly fluffy sheep.

We had so much fun playing with this Manger sensory bin. It will be out for the rest of our Christmas season…and probably a bit longer after that!

Want to see more sensory bins based on Christmas Carols? Check out what these bloggers have created!

Christmas Handwriting Activities

Writing out that Christmas wish list is a difficult task that brings out tears instead of holiday excitement. I’ve got a solution for your kiddo with handwriting difficulties: a packet of modified paper for all of the Christmas handwriting tasks that come up each year. Use this handwriting pack to help kids who struggle with handwriting to participate in holiday traditions while even working on and developing their handwriting skills!

Working on handwriting with kids this Christmas season? Grab your copy of the Christmas Modified Handwriting Packet. It’s got three types of adapted paper that kids can use to write letters to Santa, Thank You notes, holiday bucket lists and much more…all while working on handwriting skills in a motivating and fun way! Read more about the adapted Christmas Paper here.