Ocean Animals Science Sensory Bin: Sea shells, fossils, shark teeth, and more! This simple sensory bin is a great way to get children exploring marine life through sight, sound, touch, and even scent! Both my toddler and my early elementary aged child enjoyed and learned through this hands on activity!
Sensory bins are something that we absolutely adore around here! They are simple to throw together, fun to play with, and just all around a great way to explore different concepts. For this sensory bin we received a Sea Life Specimen Center from Lakeshore Learning for review.
Items Needed for Ocean Animals Science Sensory Bin:
- Dyed Pasta (find our simple how-to dye pasta recipe here)
- Lakeshore Learning Sea Life Specimen Lab
- Safari LTD. Ocean TOOB
- Sea Shells
- Kids Crafting Tray or Bin
- Stress Away Young Living Essential Oils
Setting Up Play:
We introduced this sensory bin to our kiddos a bit differently than the rest. Before adding in the dyed pasta and Safari LTD. TOOBs we took a bit to explore and play with just the Lakeshore Learning Sea Life Specimen Lab. We did add in various sea shells to the kit. This is something that we could have completely skipped over as the kit itself is full of different types of exploration…however my kiddos were pretty proud of their recent sea shell collection and wanted to play with them 😉
We spent some time introducing the textures, tools, terms, and examining the fact cards that came for each item included in the kit. Then we added in the dyed pasta, a couple drops of Stress Away Young Living Essential Oils, and the Ocean TOOB and played!
The kids had fun “swimming” their creatures through the ocean.
And playing games of hide-n-seek. The sponge was a favorite hiding spot!
They had a blast trying out the sting ray jaw for size…
And exploring it’s funky texture.
They did an awesome job sharing the magnifying glass.
And Livia did a great job trying to teach Meatball how to use one…we almost got the concept.
The Sea Sponge ended up being the favorite to look through the magnifying glass with. So many amazing details!
They also had a ton of fun exploring which sea shells sounded like the ocean and which ones made no noise at all.
Clean up for this sensory bin was super simple as none of the items involved made any mess whatsoever. Even the few pieces of pasta that spilled over where incredibly easy to pick up. This was an awesome activity for getting my kids to explore Ocean Animals!
More Sea Life Activities!
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