Easy To Set Up: Christmas Lights & Rice Sensory Bin

Sensory play has always been a part of what we do at our house. I always have a sensory bin or gross motor activity they can do based on their needs of the day.

And sensory bins are a great way to calm down after a busy day stressful day or at a time when you just need to calm down. I also love easy to set up bins which this Christmas light and rice sensory bin is!

Christmas Lights & Rice Sensory Bin - simple and easy to set up sensor bin for kids to play in and great for sensory play - 3Dinosaurs.com

We read the book The Night the Lights Went Out on Christmas. It is about a street that gets competitive with the Christmas lights displays and what happens when the lights go out. We read it years ago and still love it!

What you used in the sensory bin

How we use our sensory bin

We do loads of open play with the sensory bin and other times they want me to create a challenge for them. We have fun doing this.

One of the first things they did was take the tweezers and start picking the lights up with them. This is a challenge and loads of fun. They wanted to see how many lights they could pick out.

They cleared out one side of the bin and put all the lights there.

My girls love to just run their hands through the sensory bin. It is great fun for kids to do. They have a blast doing this.

A favorite activity of theirs is the scoop and pour. They have poured the mixes into the bin or made as cascade pouring from one hand to another. But they just love to pour the rice back in and hear the sounds it makes.

Part way through their open play they asked if they could have cups. We have some mini cups we use for this. I got mine from Tupperware years ago but any small cup will do.

They scooped up the rice and lights and then wanted to guess how many they scooped up. They had their cups and tried to estimate how much they had.

They dumped out the light and counted to see how close they got. It was fun to see how close or how far off they were.

They did scoops where they guess which color they had the most of. It was great fun to guess and see what would happen.

Another fun activity that they did that was great for fine motor was stick the lights standing up in the rice. They cleared out an area to make it just rice and had fun.