Fun Spring Sensory Play activities for preschoolers
Need some messy play and Spring sensory play inspiration? Spring is a lovely season and it’s is all about the senses, with new life, things beginning and one-of-a-kind textures. Spring sensory activities for preschoolers are the perfect way to usher in Spring and enjoy the new season with your little ones! Here are some of the spring sensory activities and sensory play set ups my three year old has enjoyed recently. Here’s some toddler ideas to celebrate the Spring season with variety of ideas for sensory play and invitations to create that focus on the magic of the season: flowers, new baby animals, frog life cycles and more. Toddlers will love the different textures and themed sensory bins are fun spring activities for sensory exploration.
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Ideas for Spring Sensory Bins
Frog Life Cycle Sensory Bin
- Water Beads
- Cupcake Cases
- Plastic Frogs
- Black Thread or String
- Sensory Tubs
- Fake flowers (optional)
A lovely spring sensory play for preschoolers is to learn about the Frog Life Cycle through a sensory set up. We used Water Beads to act as the frogspawn – it has the same jelly like consistency! It’s one of our favourite sensory bin fillers. We then used Black string to show how they turn into tadpoles and then finally we added the plastic frogs and cupcake cases as lily pads! Archie loved the frogspawn so we kept it for a few days in an airtight container and he kept asking if he could get his ‘frogspawn’ out to play with! It’s great for imaginative play and language development. NB: These need to be played with supervision, they are not great for very young children safe if eaten and can be a choking hazard.
Spring Insect Sensory Play Tray
- Toy Insects
- Dried Black Beans
- Green Rice
- Toy Scoops
- Toy Tweezers
A fun Spring play tray for your little ones is an insect themed one! Kids love to play with these cute insects and my son loves to run his fingers through these black beans and rice. You can try adding straws and pipe cleaners – these can make pretend chopsticks or tweezers for kids to build their fine motor skills whilst trying to pick up the beans!!
How to die rice for coloured rice sensory play
This how-to dye rice for sensory play is such a simple recipe! The good thing about dying rice is that you can prep and make it the night before and it keeps for ages in an airtight container.
YOU WILL NEED:
- White rice
- Vinegar
- Liquid Food Colouring
- Scoops and small cups for filling up
Mix your 500g bag of white rice with 2 teaspoons of vinegar. Then add the food colouring and mix thoroughly. Spread the rice to dry on a paper towel and once dried – you can use in your sensory bin!
Bird’s Nest Sensory Play Activity
- Mini Birds
- Shredding from packaging
- Bird Seed
- Play dough
- Feathers
- Twigs
Celebrate the spring season with a Bird’s Nest sensory activity. I found these cute bird pegs and my son loved clipping these to a pretend bird’s nest so I thought he’d like to make a bird’s nest too. He collected twigs and leaves and added them into his playdough with feathers and packaging.
Spring Sensory Table Ideas for Preschoolers
Insect small world Fossil Play for Toddlers
Another new sensory activity, this is a fun idea for insect play for preschoolers is to put the plastic bugs or insects with some playdough. Kids can make fun imprints out of them like fossils! The lovely indents you can make out of plastic insects is a lot of fun!
Flower Ice Sensory Play
Springtime is all about the flowers! A cute spring sensory play idea for preschoolers and also a fun way to play with the flowers and blossoms is to freeze them overnight and then ask your kids to ‘free’ the flowers! This is great for little hands. and easy sensory activities for young children. This one is a great spring activity, good for a warm day or you can use smaller ice cubes inside. Archie loves to try and melt the ice with a spray bottle of hot water or you could try adding salt to the ice to see if this helps it melt quicker. Once the flowers are ‘free’ you can make flower potions with them! Younger kids will like making flower soup with the mixture See our Mud Potion post for more ideas…….. If you want to make takeaway bags, try how to make sensory bags for kids for sensory play that can be saved for on the go! If it’s winter, then you’ll love our ideas for kid’s ice play activities!
Themed Sensory Bin Ideas
Spring Scented Rose Fluffy Slime
- PVA white glue
- Contact Lens Solution
- Shaving Foam
- Essential Oil
My kids love making slime! This is a great sensory activity for toddlers and it smells so yummy but it’s obviously not taste safe so shouldn’t be used with young toddlers who might put things in their mouths. But if slime is fun, fluffy slime has such a lovely consistency for kids to play with! So how about making fluffy rose scented slime from natural elements! It’s fantastic fun and a great way to build up fine motor skills! You add shaving foam to make this slime fluffy and the rose scent comes from using some of this rose scented essential oil. To make the fluffy slime, add a large bottle of PVA glue with one tablespoon of water, a few drops of essential oil and a third of a can of shaving foam/ shaving cream and mix well. Then add contact lens solution one teaspoon at a time (we needed two teaspoons of the solution but sometimes we need less) and mix until you feel like the slime is coming together. If you add too much contact lens solution, the slime will break and not be stretchy. Most of the time, the slime will come together with a small amount of solution, if you mix really well.
More ideas for Spring Sensory Bins
Rainbow Sky Sensory Bottles
Such a fun sensory play idea! Enjoy the contents in a bottle or a sensory bin. A super spring sensory activity for babies, toddlers and preschoolers.
Flower Sensory Soup
This sensory soup is perfect for making outdoors on warmer days! For more ideas check out our garden outdoor activity ideas!
Rice Garden Sensory Bin
Try a scented rice garden sensory bin with mini pots and seeds. Children can practice planting their own garden in this fun and engaging sensory bin. A butterfly sensory bin makes a perfect springtime craft. Kids will love playing with the butterflies or helping them pollinate the flowers.
Try this rain sensory bin too!
More Ideas for Fun Sensory Ideas for preschoolers….
Hope you liked these ideas for celebrating spring with your little ones, there’s lots more Spring sensory ideas here – if you had fun with these ideas – try our other posts……. and here’s some sensory play ideas for summer too!
