All week, the babies have been enjoying a crazy St. Patrick's Day sensory bin. It has a lot of textures, shapes, shades of green, and even different noises. One of the best parts of this St. Patrick's Day sensory bin is that it's mostly made of things from the Dollar Tree!
For a sensory bin like this, you can really use anything you want but I will share what I used. Anything that is fun to touch and on-theme works! Everything I used is from the Dollar Tree unless noted otherwise.
- sensory bin storage container (I use an under-the-bed bin from Target)
- green bendy straws
- green foil tissue paper
- foam shamrock cut outs
- green paper grass
- gold tinsel
- shamrock tinsel garland
- green feather boa
- shamrock cookie cutters
- vinyl shamrock window clings
- green jeweled ribbon (found at Michael's Craft Store)
- St. Patrick's Day foam shapes - shamrocks, leprechaun hats, gold coins (found at Michael's Craft Store)
- large gold circle confetti (Target party section)
I lined the bin with the foil tissue paper to make the overall effect extra shiny and then added the tinsel, grass, garland, boa, and finally tucked in the smaller objects.
The tinsel brought Baby B a lot of joy (at least until it stuck to his feet and then he was over it!).
I was not expecting much excitement over the foil tissue paper but it turned out to be a lot of fun to crunch and wave around. It makes a fun sound and we had a little dance party while shaking foil sheets! Another unexpectedly fun sound was pulling the bendy straws by each end and stretching them.
Something I really enjoy with this type of activity is watching how the babies interact with it. While Baby B took more of a throw-things-around approach to this bin, Baby A carefully collected the smaller items. First straws, then flat gold coins, then the different foam shapes. 
She collected her items and put them in a tray.
There are endless possibilities for a sensory bin like this - sorting by shapes or colors, naming items, just plain old playing, and more. This was our first holiday themed bin and I had so much fun putting it together!
