Soda Dough Snowmen Sensory Bin

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. Read about Colleen's experience and career as an occupational therapist, including how The OT Toolbox began on our About The OT Toolbox page: https://www.theottoolbox.com/about-us/ 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:
Did you see our Soda Dough Snowmen post from last week?  We’ve been using our snowmen in all kinds of pretend play with loads of imagination!  They came in handy one day for this Soda Dough Snowmen Sensory Bin. This is a Winter sensory bin that supports fine motor skills and tactile sensory input.

Snowman Sensory Bin

We love this snowman sensory bin because you can involve kids in several aspects of setting up and playing with the sensory bin:

  • Making the fake snow
  • Molding the fake snow into snowmen
  • Manipulating and exploring items in the snowman sensory bin
Sensory Bin with Soda Dough Snowmen
We loved creating this snowman sensory bin on a cold winter day.
Items that you can add to a snowman sensory bin include:
  • Container
  • Cotton balls
  • Tinsel
  • Cotton batting
  • Gems or other small objects and items to manipulate and explore
Child manipulating loose parts in a sensory bin with Soda Dough Snowmen

Loose Parts in Sensory Bins

We used cotton batting left, cotton balls, our soda dough snowmen, bits of tinsel, and some glass gems.  A few clothes pins were added for fine motor exploring, too.  This was a fun little world for Baby Girl with loose parts.  All those little pieces are fun to explore and examine. 

Language is developed.  As your child plays, ask her questions.  “What color is that?” “What can we do with this?” What is this called?”  Their imagination will blossom and learning is encouraged.  You can add colors, scents, textures to sensory bins with little loose parts pieces.

Hand Strengthening with Clothes Pins

Pinching items with clothes pins is a great way to strengthen the intrinsic muscles of the hands.  Strength in the arches of the hands is needed for endurance with coloring and handwriting.  Starting in the toddler years with fine motor strengthening activities is a fun way to play and work on pre-handwriting skills.   Not to mention, it’s just fun!

Looking for more sensory bin ideas?  Check out our Sensory Play page for lots of fun activities!

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