My boys love bugs. Since I'm not too keen on letting them play with the real thing, I thought I'd come up with a fun insect themed sensory bin and fine motor activity to let them check out some buggy friends. We had a great time with this and it was so easy to set up!
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Our activity is based on The Big Book of Big Bugs. This is a wonderful book for your bug lovers, with giant fold out pages that make big (and little) bugs come to life! After reading this, my boys were ready to explore the world of bugs, so we came up with a fun sensory and fine motor activity to do just that.
To set up your "Bug Bin" you will need:
- Small plastic tub filled with sensory material. We used dried beans, but you could use sand, oatmeal, popcorn - anything that you can dig into.
- Small plastic insects
- Kids' Tweezers
- Bug House (ours came from the $1 spot at Target)
Directions:
Fill up your tub with your beans or other sensory material. Hide a few of your plastic bugs inside and leave a few visible on top. Set out with your plastic tweezers and bug house, and invite your kids to come explore.
My boys immediately started trying to pick up the bugs with the tweezers. This is excellent fine motor practice for little hands!
It took some work to get the tweezers onto the bugs but they were able to do it!
They also had fun exploring the bin with their hands, and digging for the hidden bugs.
Once they found them, they stored them in their bug house. Once they were all in the container, we dumped them back in the bin and played again!
This was a really fun activity incorporating our book, in addition to being a wonderful sensory experience and fine motor skill practice. We will definitely be trying this again!