Fun $5 Garden Sensory Bin - “Build a Bouquet” For Summer
Looking for a fun, sensory friendly way to help develop and expand your child’s fine motor skills? This simple and inexpensive (just $5!) garden sensory bin is so easy to make and full of re-usable sensory bin items from the local dollar store. Read on to see how easy it is to make this sensory bin and encourage your toddler’s creativity!
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We’re big fans of activities for kids that are developmentally beneficial, fun, easy to make and inexpensive. This garden sensory bin ticks all of the boxes! It took us less than 3 minutes to put this bin together and most of that was spent deciding which flower colors we want to use. This sensory bin is made of a pretend “moss” from the dollar store and since the pieces are on the smaller side, you’ll still want to keep a close eye on your kids while they are playing. Below, we will recap what you need to make this Garden Sensory Bin to “Build a Bouquet” for Summer and then let you know how your kids can use their creativity while working on their fine motor skill development!
What You Need for the Garden Sensory Bin:
- 3-4 fake floral bouquets ($1 each at Dollar Tree)
- 1-2 packs of fake moss/grass ($1 each at Dollar Tree)
How to Assemble this Sensory Bin:
There are two steps for assembling this sensory bin. We love easy activities like this!
Pour moss into your sensory bin container and spread it around.
Pop off the flowers from the stems of your bouquets and assemble them around your bin on the moss.
Voila! Now you have the “garden” of this garden sensory bin! Mom tip: For added fun, let your child pick out the flowers at the store! Also, if your child is more advanced in categorizing and color identification, get a few varieties of the same color or a few colors of the same variety for them to sort out.
Start the Fun!
Have your child pick up the flowers and put them onto the stem. They’ll have to carefully line the stem up with the hole of the flower to insert and this will really work their skills! Add flowers to a stem bundle until you have a full bouquet.
What I love about sensory activities like this garden activity bin is the versatility it offers. All it takes is a little creativity and you can let the creativity sore!
More Ways to Play!
These are several ideas of different ways your children can learn and play with this bin:
Sort the colors:
Have them assemble the bouquets by color so that each stem bundle contains only one.
Separate the colors:
Don’t place two of the same flower on one bundle! Make sure you have one of each before it’s doubled up.
Take them apart to play some more:
Have your child be the one to disassemble the bouquets, which is another easy way to work fine motor skills with this garden sensory bin. Tip: do this first yourself to help loosen the flowers. We found some to be tight on the stems.
Imagination Time:
What would you do with a bouquet of flowers? Have your child put the bouquets inside vases you already own (or grab some from the dollar store while you’re there) and practice watering them! Give the flowers to a friend or family member for their “birthday,” at a “tea party” or whatever event your child wants to host.
Categorize & Organize:
For an advanced version, use flowers of the same color but different varieties. Have your child identify the differences and sort them into their respective bouquets. You could also get 2 sets of 2 different flowers of the same variety but make them different colors - i.e. 2 red flowers and 2 pink flowers. Have them separate out the like flowers.
Each of these ideas is a fun way to keep your child involved with this Build a Bouquet sensory bin idea, but I’m sure there are some that I missed. Tell us below how else you would use this sensory bin!
