Now that it’s the first week of fall (and today’s the first day that it actually FEELS like fall) I thought I’d share one of our favorite sensory bins we do each year — the farm & feed fall sensory bin!
I’m sure there are many variations you could think of when making this bin, but we’ve done it the same way each year because it’s one of the kids’ favorites, and why fix what’s not broken right?
Materials
To make this bin you’ll need…
If you don’t have a dedicated sensory table or sensory bin, we used a under-the-bed storage bin for years, and honestly we still probably will use it even though we now have an Ikea sensory table. It’s a great, inexpensive alternative and can be picked up from Target or WalMart. It also makes for easier clean up since you place it directly on the floor.
We’ve always ordered the dried corn kernels online through Amazon, but if you have a local farm that sells dried corn as feed or something similar, I’d recommend that, as it’s not cheap online (but gosh, is it convenient!). We’ve always added dried pinto beans into the mix just to bulk up the sensory material and vary the texture a little bit.
And then as far as toys to go inside, if you already have farm animals laying around the toy room, just use those! Otherwise you can find them pretty easily on Amazon or wherever you buy toys. I definitely recommend including toy tractors and trucks that have “scoopers” in there, as it’s always fun to have something that can scoop up the sensory material.
Language Learning Games by Age Group
Once you have your fall farm sensory bin assembled, your kids will go to town scooping the corn, burying the animals, making it “rain corn,” and more. Once they’re over the initial “this is so cool!” reaction, you can use some of the following ideas for promoting language development with this bin.
Baby/Toddler
At this stage of development, children are much more receptive than productive with their language. They can identify known words by pointing, and then of course animal sounds are always a favorite. Ask your toddler to identify the different animals that you have in the bin. Then you can go over what sound each animal makes!
“Dónde está el caballo?” (Where is the horse?)
*Toddler points to the horse*
“¡Muy bien! ¿Cómo hace el caballo?” (Good job! What does a horse say?)
*neeiighh!*
Preschoolers & Early Elementary
You can also do identification and animal sounds with preschoolers, but this time leave your questions more open ended, allowing the child to identify the animals by name. So instead of “where is the ____,” let them tell you what they see!
“¡Mira todos los animales! Qué animales ves aquí?” (Look at all of the animals! What animals do you see here?)
*Veo un caballo* (I see a horse)
“Muy bien, eso es un caballo! Cómo hace un caballo?” (Great job, that’s a horse! What sound does a horse make?)
*neiiighh!*
For older preschoolers and early elementary, you can work on some critical problem solving by playing “¿Quién falta?” Who’s missing?
First, choose a set number of animals, one of each kind. Let’s say you have eight animals: vaca (cow), caballo (horse), oveja (sheep), cerdo (pig), gallo (rooster), cabra (goat), burro (donkey), and pato (duck). Go over all of the animals so that the child knows which ones are there. Then, have the child close her eyes and while she’s not looking, you bury one of the animals so it’s completely out of sight. Once it’s buried, the child opens her eyes and you ask, “Who is missing?” Once the child identifies which animal has disappeared, have her look for it by digging around until she finds it! Then you can continue by repeating with another animal, or by having the child take a turn hiding an animal and you guess!
“Okay, vamos a jugar a ‘Quién falta’. Voy a esconder un animal en el maíz, y tú tienes que identificar cuál animal desapareció!” (Okay we’re going to play “Who’s Missing.” I’m going to hide an animal beneath the corn, and you have to identify which animal went missing!)
“Cierra tus ojitos” (Close your eyes)
-You bury the cow in the corn-
“Okay, abre tus ojos! Quién falta?” (Okay, open your eyes! Who’s missing?)
-Encourage the child to look at who IS there to determine who is missing. Don’t let them dig around yet, tell them to use their memory-
*Child identifies the cow is missing, “La vaca falta!!!”*
“Sí! Muy bien! La vaca desapareció! Búscala, dónde está la vaca?” (Yes, very good! The cow went missing! Look for it, where is the cow?)
Older Elementary
Think older kids are “too big” for sensory bins? Think again! With older children you can go beyond just animal name vocabulary by talking about the different products that come from the farm animals. This way, you are introducing new vocabulary items like wool, milk, leather, meat, etc. It’s also a good way to get older kids talking in full sentences in the target language, by modeling the sentence structure for them, and then having them extend the structure to create new sentences. Having the animals in hand while they talk about them is a good way to keep an older child on task.
“¿Qué nos da la vaca?” (What do we get from the cow?)
*La vaca nos da leche y carne* (The cow gives us milk and meat.)
“¿Y qué podemos hacer con leche?” (And what can we make with milk?)
*Podemos hacer mantequilla, queso, helado, etc.* (We can make butter, cheese, ice cream, etc.)
“Muy bien! ¿Sabías que el cuero también viene de las vacas?” (Very good! Did you know that leather also comes from cows?)
*No, no sabía!* (No, I didn’t know that!)
“Ahora, ¿qué nos da la oveja?” (Now, what do we get from sheep?)
*La oveja nos da lana.* (Sheep give us wool.)
“Sí muy bien. ¿Y sabías que también nos puede dar leche?” (Yes, good job! And did you know that we can also get milk [from sheep]?)
*¿Leche de oveja?* Sheep milk?
“Sí! Okay, ¿qué tal el cerdo, que nos da el cerdo?” (Yes! Okay, what about pigs, what do pigs give us?)
*El cerdo nos da jamón, tocino, salchichas, etc.* (A pig gives us ham, bacon, sausage, etc.)
Do you have any other ideas for language development games that you could play using this sensory bin? Let us know in a comment below! If you put together a farm sensory bin like ours, make sure to tag us in a picture of it on Instagram so we can follow along! www.instagram.com/bilinguitos
