5 Dinosaur Sensory Bin Ideas for Little Learners
Do you have a little Dino lover in your home or classroom? My little boy just loved dinosaurs when he was younger and so I created these fun, easy, dinosaur sensory bin set-ups for him.
Over my years parenting, I’ve come to realise that our little people learn so much better when we tie in their learning with their interests and help them to learn in a play-based way. Learning through play is definitely the best way during the early years!
My hope is that with these 6 dinosaur sensory bin ideas as a starting point, you will have fun engaging your little learner in play-based learning that they LOVE!
These activities all help our little people to…
- Develop their Fine Motor Skills (skills needed for writing)
- Grow their Vocabulary
- Engage their Imaginations and think Creatively
- Develop their Problem Solving Skills
- Increase Brain Development (sensory play is great for this!)
- Improve social skills (when activities are done alongside a friend)
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Muddy Dino Bath Day!
This Muddy Dinosaur Sensory Bin kept my little one’s happy for ages!
I made the diy ‘mud’ by mixing together flour, cocoa powder, and water until I got the desired consistency. Then I grabbed a bowl and filled it with bubbly, soapy, water and a few cloths and old toothbrushes for cleaning the muddy dinos. Lastly, I added in my son’s dinosaur toys.
The fun of sensory bins is that they’re open-ended play so you don’t need to direct your kids or tell them what to do or how to play. It’s completely up to them to choose how to play. This is great for their imaginations and problem-solving skills.
However, if your little one is new to sensory play and unsure how to play, you could play alongside them for a bit, modelling different ideas for play, until they get the hang of it.
You could make muddy dino footprints, make up a little story about the dinos playing in the mud and needing a bath, mix the water with the mud to make muddy puddles for the dinosaurs to jump in.. There are so many options!
For more Easy Water Play, check out: 15+ Water Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
Dinosaur Nature Sensory Play
To create this Dinosaur Sensory Bin, I encouraged my kids to help me collect bits and pieces from around our garden to create the dinosaurs habitat.
We collected sticks, pebbles, grass, leaves, and flowers, and then arranged them to make the dinosaurs habitat. The pebbles could be used for creating a little watering hole for the dinosaurs to drink from.
You could also add a little muddy wallow to this, using the diy ‘mud’ recipe in the activity above!
This is one of my favourite go-to activities if I have no preparation time, as the kids can help to set it up!
It’s also lovely for them to spend time in nature and bring some of that into their play.
Dinosaur Footprints
Creating dinosaur footprints is a lovely, easy, process art activity for toddlers and preschoolers.
I simply laid out some sheets of paper, and a plate with different colors of paint and then added some dinosaurs to the table. You could also do this with a giant sheet of paper on the floor or outside if you wanted.
For more Easy Painting Ideas, take a look at my 10+ Process Painting Ideas for Little Learners.
Dino Ice Rescue!
An easy, low-prep, Sensory bin with little mess for those days you’re too tired for elaborate, messy play!
Freeze all the dinosaurs together in a big block of ice and then give them toy hammers, spoons, and syringes with warm water to ‘rescue’ the dinosaurs.
Racing Dinos!
A super fun, really easy activity for a sunny day in the garden!
Simply freeze some dinosaurs in blocks of ice the night before. I carefully balanced mine so they were sitting or standing up in the ice, like little racing boats!
Once they have set, pop them out, and add a little water and some ice chips to your sensory tray and you’re good to go! If you have any old piping lying around, we halved that length-wise so that they made little slides to race down too!
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