This fun winter sensory bin is an easy indoor activity which is the perfect winter activity for preschoolers. It is great for practicing fine-motor skills and a boredom buster when it’s too cold to play outside.

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It’s time to beat the winter blues with this winter activity for preschoolers. This winter sensory bin was an absolute hit around our house! Sensory tables and sensory bins are a fun experience for toddlers and preschoolers. My kindergartener even enjoys them. There are so many skills integrated into sensory bin experiences. Scooping and pouring develop fine motor skills. They also allow kids to explore with their tactile sense. There are many ways to extend the play and also just use for open-ended imagination!

What Materials Are Used in this Winter Sensory Bin

Safari Ltd. Artic Toob (This is the one we used)

Polar Nature Toob (This one would be perfect too)

Winter Activity for Preschooler

To begin the fun, just gather the supplies and put them in a plastic bin. Usually you can find a bin around the house that will work. We used Arctic animals, cotton balls, blue glass beads, and a few other small snowflake gems and stickers. The fun is just having a variety of textures and items for kids to explore. The winter animals were a BIG hit in this winter sensory bin.

A plastic bin with cotton balls for snow and plastic arctic animals, blue glass gems, and small snowflakes.

It’s also great to grab a couple of small bowls and something to use as pinchers, such as a clothespin. Younger children can explore by scooping and mixing. For older kids, introduce the clothespin and have them practice picking items up. It’s great fine motor practice for them to pinch and release!

My son really went to town using his imagination. He had the animals talking, hiding, and exploring their wintery habitat. This was a great boredom buster and just the winter activity we needed for indoors!

Extending the Learning

I find after my children have free time to explore the sensory bin, they are ready to do some other activities with the bin. We spent time counting the items and making comparisons if we had more blue beads or more snowflakes. It’s also a great time to build an understanding of prepositions by placing things “over” or “under” the snow.

A child engaging with the winter activity for preschoolers. A great boredom buster for indoor play. Winter Sensory Bin.

This winter sensory bin can be linked to a lesson on Artic animals or a winter theme. The Arctic Animals (Who’s That) book or A Really Good Snowman are so cute and a great way to further the use of this sensory bin with literacy.

BENEFITS OF SENSORY BINS

Sensory bins provide opportunities for fun, hands-on learning for your child with endless possibilities of materials to use only limited by your imagination. Children can learn many different skills playing in sensory bins, such as motor skills, math and science, literacy, and social skills.

Motor skills
- Grasping, pouring, pinching and using tools like tongs and scoops are working on fine motor skills.
Math and science
- Counting, measuring, mixing, pouring, dumping, stacking and comparing are all foundations for learning about math and science.
Literacy
- Tracing letters, making letters or numbers, telling stories as they are working, and learning new vocabulary words all support developing literacy skills.
Social Skills
- Sharing, cooperation and working with others all support building social skills.