What Are Some Fun Sensory Bin Ideas?

Have different bins or pans or shallow buckets of unpopped corn kernels, dried beans, flour, and even things like q-tips.

Fill socks with corn kernels, rice, buttons, macaroni, cotton balls, coarse salt - anything small and have them toss it to each other.

Fill pieces of tied up cheesecloth with different spices (keep them in different ziplocks).

Tape pieces of colored cellphane (blue or red stimulates the brain in this activity) between two paper frames glued to a popsicle stick and have them cover one eye while looking at different things.

Fill a bin with cut up straws of different sizes cut in half, quarters, thirds and so on.

I liked to place toys like marbles in the freezer and let my son feel a room temperature marble and then a frozen marble. I used matchbox cars and legos.

Colored rice or noodles - (food color + rubbing alcohol in a baggie --put on paper towel/newspaper to dry)

Beans (lot of different kinds!)

Flax Seeds, bird seed, (all kinds!)

Whipped cream!!!

Shaved ice

Sand

Fabric strips

Also check Pinterest for ideas!

Have you done a bin of dyed noodles? We made one for our son when he was about 18 months and at age 4 he still asks for us to take it out occasionally.

I dyed cheap white rice with food coloring for my sensory tub. I like to put small treasures in it, like fake crystals and shiny confetti shapes and sparkly Pom poms. My daughter loves to hunt for things. We also used big chopsticks made for kids to pick up the items. This helps to develop the fine motor skills essential for writing. We also use a tub large enough for her to actually sit in and place it on the floor so she can really immerse herself in the sensory experience. I occasionally peruse the dollar stores for cheap additions to our tub. Have fun!

I am not sure what age you are looking for. I think that Sandpaper and some yarn or string, you can have them feel the different textures and make art or shapes or letters with them.
I will be interested in knowing what others say as well!

Have you created like a surprise box? I remember as a kid loving this box where you'd stick your hand it but not know what you would be feeling until you felt it. You could pretty easily convert a shoe box into that, then swap out the item inside.

Otherwise, I'd head to one of those big craft stores and walk the aisles. The fabric area has tons of textures, I'm thinking bumpy fabric, fleece, buttons, elastic, bead strings...

We've used fabric swings, beans, rice, styrofoam peanuts, play dough, created our own slime, jumped on trampolines while throwing painted sponges at a canvas.

Not sure what a sensory bin is, but my mom's preschool class loved playing the matching game with sounds. You just get some plastic easter eggs and put different things in them in pairs (rice in two, penny in two, sand in two, etc, just stuff that sounds different). Just make sure to use electrical tape to tape them shut or you'll have a big mess. Then mix them up and put them in an egg carton and let the kiddos shake them to find the ones that sound the same.