Beans and Pasta Sensory Bin

One of our regular sensory bins is food based. We use a mix of dried beans and any assortment of pastas.

Today we chose to use penne because Munchkin has been practicing his fine motor skills. Bean likes to show him how to do it.

We normally use Cheerios or beads for this activity, so it was exciting to see how quickly they adjusted to the penne despite it being bigger and harder to put on the pipe cleaner.

Bean also enjoyed the challenge of putting the penne on the soba noodles, as they would snap if she wasn't too gentle. We explored the durability and flexibility of the penne and the soba noodles. The penne could resist pressure (using their hands to press down on it and squeezing it) and the soba was flexible enough to bend it gently before POP! it would snap and pieces would go flying. Bean made sure every piece of soba was broken before we cleaned up this bin. She had so much fun!

And of course, more scooping and pouring :)

Then we decided to add old fashioned oatmeal which we haven't used in a sensory bin in such a long time! (Mainly because we have all discovered how good overnight oatmeal is in yogurt.)

But it was munched on along with some animal crackers that had wandered into the bin...

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