Sensory play is a powerful tool in early childhood education, offering opportunities for children to engage with their environment through touch, sight, sound, smell, and even taste. These hands-on activities captivate young learners and foster essential developmental skills such as problem-solving, fine motor coordination, and social interaction. Research shows that the benefits of sensory play are immense. It can enhance cognitive growth, support emotional regulation, and encourage creativity in young minds. However, with so much on your plate, it can be difficult to come up with new sensory bin ideas year-round.
To help educators bring the benefits of sensory play to their classrooms all year, AAA State of Play has curated a collection of 12 themed sensory play ideas for teachers—one for each month of the year!
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Theme: Winter Fun
January is the heart of winter, a time when frosty fun is everywhere—but you don’t need snow to bring the magic of the season into your classroom. Freeze toy penguins (or other wintry animals) inside large ice molds. Provide salt, colored water in squirt bottles, and other safe “excavation” tools for children to free their chilly friends.
Sensory Elements: Cold, slippery ice; physical exploration in ice.
Source: Red Violet Studio - Penguins in Frozen Eggs
Theme: Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day brings thoughts of love and hearts, and February is the perfect month for a sensory activity that’s colorful and fun. Freeze water in silicone heart molds and let kids paint and decorate them with watercolors. As the colors swirl and melt, children will experience a magical combination of art and sensory exploration.
Sensory Elements: Cold, slippery ice; vibrant watercolor blending; temperature changes.
Source: Artful Parent - Painted Ice Hearts
Theme: Rainy Days and Muddy Play
March brings rain and mud, making a water-based activity perfect for the season. Fill one bin with muddy soil and toy animals and another with soapy water. Provide tools like sponges, cloths, and brushes, and let kids scrub their animals clean. This fun and messy activity promotes fine motor skills and problem-solving.
Sensory Elements: Slimy mud, foamy water, and scrubbing action.
Source: Messy Little Monster - Wash the Animals
Theme: Spring Colors and Easter Fun
In April, spring has sprung, and with it comes the bright colors of Easter. If you’ve been hunting for seek-and-find bin ideas, this is it! An Easter-themed sensory bin is a vibrant and engaging way to celebrate the season. Fill a tub with rainbow-colored rice, plastic eggs, and small toys or trinkets. You can even add a fun challenge by placing letters, numbers, or matching items inside the eggs and let children sort or order them.
Sensory Elements: Bright rice colors, smooth eggs, and a variety of textures.
Source: Busy Toddler - Easter Sensory Bin
Theme: May Flowers
They say April showers bring May Flowers, so why not take the opportunity to learn about nature? Fill a water table with fresh or dried flower petals and provide tools like tweezers, scissors, and small bowls for exploration. Encourage kids to crush petals, press flowers onto paper, or simply play with their hands. Add frozen petals for an extra textural surprise! Kids will love the feel of the petals and the chance to use their noses to explore the beauty of spring!
Sensory Elements: Soft petals, floral scents, and splashing water.
Source: Friends Art Lab - Spring Flower Sensory Play
Theme: Underwater Exploration
Summer is the season of sunshine and water table play, making June the perfect time to get splashing with the first of our summer water table ideas. Create a mini ocean with aquarium rocks, toy sea animals, shells, and pearls. Give kids small nets to scoop treasures, compare catches, and explore textures. This hands-on activity combines sensory play with the opportunity for a biology lesson on the ocean!
Sensory Elements: Cool water, rough rocks, smooth shells, and marine life fun.
Source: Teaching 2 and 3-Year-Olds - Fish Aquarium Table
Theme: Pool-side fun
July is peak swimming season, but you don’t need a pool to experience the fun. For this activity, cut pool noodles into pieces and challenge kids to create floating towers, patterns, or boats. Add pom-poms and small figurines for even more storytelling and building opportunities.
Sensory Elements: Buoyant noodles, splashing water, and playful problem-solving.
Source: Pocket of Preschool - Pool Noodle Play
Theme: Summertime Sailing
With hot days and sunny skies, August calls for a summer sensory play adventure inspired by a day on the water. Provide colorful Playfoam and foam triangles to build boats with sails. Kids can float their creations on water, race them, or invent stories about their tiny passengers. This activity blends engineering and sensory fun—all without the hassle of a full boat day.
Sensory Elements: Soft Playfoam, floating water, and hands-on building.
Source: Happy Toddler Playtime - Playfoam Boats
Theme: Back-to-School Fun
September’s crisp air and falling leaves bring the start of a new school year and the chance for a seek-and-find lesson in letters. Fill a sensory bin with rice, beans, or sand, and hide letter pieces inside. Let kids search for the letters to spell their names or create simple words.
Sensory Elements: Grainy textures, bright colors, and tactile exploration.
Source: PreK Printable Fun - Seek and Find
Theme: Halloween
October is all about Halloween fun and spooky surprises, making it the perfect time to get messy. Cook and color spaghetti in Halloween shades like green, purple, or orange, and add creepy-crawly plastic toys like spiders, bats, and eyeballs. Kids will love squishing the noodles and discovering the hidden treasures.
Sensory Elements: Squishy noodles, slippery textures, and spooky surprises.
Source:Littles Love Learning - Monster Noodles
Theme: Autumn Leaves
Autumn is a time of seasonal changes with all the colorful leaves on the ground, and November’s sensory activity brings that to the classroom. Fill a water table with leaves collected on a nature walk and provide tools like tweezers, magnifying glasses, and scissors. Kids can examine leaf veins, cut shapes, or create art with the natural materials.
Sensory Elements: Crunchy leaves, cool water, and hands-on discovery.
Source: Learning Resources - Fall Leaves Water Table
Theme: Snowy Winter Magic
Even without snow, you can bring frosty fun indoors with this winter sensory play activity. Use shredded paper pulp to create “snow” and provide kids with accessories like foam triangles, sticks, and bottle caps to build their own snowmen. Whether they create characters or just like mashing the pulp, this is a seasonal activity the kids are sure to love.
Sensory Elements: Soft paper pulp, creative building, and tactile play.
Source: Housing a Forest - No Snow Sensory Bin
Sensory play is essential to early learning, bringing joy, exploration, and valuable skill-building into every child’s life. Teachers can create meaningful, memorable experiences for their students by aligning activities with seasonal themes.
If you’re ready to transform your classroom into a hub of creativity, exploration, and learning, AAA State of Play offers a selection of high-quality play structures. Whether you’re looking for durable water tables or sand and water playground equipment, we have everything you need to create engaging learning environments.
Sensory Exploration When children engage with hands-on materials, they process new information with their senses. Sensory experiences can be emotionally regulating for many children. |
Cognitive Growth Sensory play stations naturally encourage experimentation, problem-solving, and learning about cause and effect. This leads to happy, healthy, growing brains! |
Memory and Observation When many materials are present, children are challenged to find and keep track of what they are playing with and the narrative they are building. |
Math and Physics Water and sand play encourages children to experiment with scientific concepts such as volume, motion, density, shapes, and structures. |
Language Development Water tables and other sensory play stations provide students with an exciting and novel experience, encouraging natural communication, especially for more reserved ones. They give educators opportunities to ask students about the creations, stories, and interactions that occur here. |
Social Skills Since many children are drawn to sensory play opportunities, they provide opportunities for learning how to take turns, share materials, and co-create stories and characters. |
Creativity When it comes to open-ended materials, the possibilities for creativity are endless. Children can focus on the process of playing and crafting rather than on a result, leading to growth in abstract thinking and innovation. |
Motor Skills Children cultivate hand-eye coordination and other fine motor skills by learning to pour, squeeze, stir, splash, paint, and tell stories with water and other materials. They improve their sense of control, accuracy, and direction by pouring water between buckets. |
Concentration For children (and adults, too!), play can be a completely immersive experience. Water play is incredibly engaging, and children often lose themselves in the activity and naturally stay focused on the scenarios they create. This can help build their attention span over time. |
Month | Sensory Play Idea |
|---|---|
January Penguins in Frozen EggsSensory Bin redvioletstudio.com | Freeze toy penguins (or any wintry animal) inside of ice eggs (you can use a large ice mold for this). Provide salt, water in squirt bottles (different colors are a fun option), and other safe “excavation” tools so children can try to free them. |
February Painted Ice Hearts Sensory Bin artfulparent.com | Use a silicone mold to create large heart-shaped ice cubes. Set out brushes and watercolor palettes and invite children to decorate to their heart’s content. |
March Wash the Animals Water Play messylittlemonster.com | Put an assortment of toy animals in a bin of soil and add water to create mud. Provide another bin of soapy water and a selection of cleaning tools like sponges, cloths, towels, dishwands, toothbrushes, etc., and challenge the kids to get the animals as sparkly clean as possible! Toy cars would work well for older children (more nooks and crannies to clean). |
April Easter Sensory Bin busytoddler.com | Fill a tub with rainbow rice (which is easy to make but can also be purchased), plastic Easter eggs, and empty rice cartons. Adding letters, numbers, or small toys can create a seek-and-find element. For example, challenge older kids to put a number in each egg and order them correctly in the carton! |
May Spring Flower Water Play friendsartlab.com | Fill the water table with flowers of any kind—this is a great opportunity to use leftover bouquets past their prime. Optional materials to add:
After the fun, you can freeze the petals in ice and encourage kids to extract them. |
June Fish Aquarium Water Table teaching2and3yearolds.com | Fill a water tub with various ocean-themed materials such as aquarium rock, sand, seashells, plastic sea animals, or pearls. Give children small fish nets to explore and scoop the bin with. They will have a blast comparing catches, admiring seashells, and feeling the different textures. |
July Pool Noodle Water Table pocketofpreschool.com | Slice some poodle noodles with a steak knife and add them to water. Students can practice building towers, patterns, counting, and more. Pom poms, straws, plastic figures, and other loose materials may encourage innovation and storytelling. |
August Playfoam Boats Water Table happytoddlerplaytime.com | Supplies needed:
Encourage children to build boats out of Playfoam and set sail on the water table. They can race, take on little passengers, explore textures, and tell stories. |
September Spell Your Name Seek and Find prekprintablefun.com | This is a great activity to do when learning students’ names early in the year! Fill a bin with a sensory filler like colorful rice, beans, or sand. Add a bunch of letters and challenge children to find what they need to spell their names using tweezers and scoops. After their names are done, you can ask them to keep building words with the remaining letters or help their peers find theirs. |
October Monster Noodles Sensory Bin littleslovelearning.com |
A fun challenge would be finding all possible objects within the bin and filling a mini pumpkin using tongs! |
November Fun Fall Leaves Water Table learningresources.com | This is a great way to use leaves found on a nature walk! Simply add them to water (food coloring optional). Provide tools such as:
You can encourage children to cut out certain shapes, create artwork, examine and try to extract leaf veins, and more. |
December No Snow Snowmen Sensory Bin housingaforest.com | Build a snowman with paper pulp (and other low-cost/free materials!):
Kids can build and accessorize their snowmen or just have fun mushing the pulp! |
Sources:
National Association for the Education of Young Children (naeyc.org/resources/blog/importance-sand-and-water-play)
Action for Children (actionforchildren.org.uk/blog/what-is-sensory-play-and-why-is-it-important)
Cleveland Clinic (health.clevelandclinic.org/benefits-of-sensory-play-ideas)
The founder and CEO of https://www.aaastateofplay.com/, Nic Breedlove has made waves in the commercial playground equipment industry. Nic’s passion for playgrounds and commitment to excellence has helped to make AAA what it is today. He enjoys sharing his keen insights into the playground world in an effort to make play easier and more accessible to all kids.
