Preschool Kindergarten
MathPrintablesSensory Activities
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The days are getting longer and warmer and that means that gardening season is upon us!
Getting outside and playing in the dirt yourselves is obviously the best way to learn all about growing vegetables in the ground, but this gardening for numbers sensory bin is a great alternative if you either can’t grow a garden of your own or you’re simply looking to supplement your learning while you’re indoors.
This fun sensory bin provides hours of fun and is super easy to throw together.
With just a little bit of colored rice, some plastic carrots from the Dollar Tree, and the printable number shovels (found below), your kids will have a blast working on their fine motor skills, counting, and more!
Assembling the Gardening for Numbers Sensory Bin
Now, for this sensory bin, you could easily use a number of things as the base.
We chose to use some rice that we colored brown to look like the dirt that carrots are grown in, but you could just as easily use real dirt from your garden outside, or even crushed chocolate graham crackers/muffins/cake if you’re looking for something taste safe for little ones that still like to put things in their mouths.
Take whatever base you decide to use and put it into a deep dish or bin.
Take your plastic carrot containers, we got ours at the Dollar Tree but you can find them on Amazon as well if you either don’t have a Dollar Tree close by or yours doesn’t carry them, and use a permanent marker to write the numbers one through ten on each, one number per carrot.
Next, print, cut, and laminate the numbered garden shovels from the printable set below. Numbers one through ten are included.
Open up each of the carrot containers and stick one of the garden shovels inside each one.
The number that you put on the carrot container should not match the number on the shovel inside.
Finally, stick your carrot containers down into the rice, or whatever base you decided to use, and add a small, kid-friendly gardening tool or two to the bin for your child to use while they are gardening for numbers.
When they’re ready to play, have them practice their digging and scooping skills while working on numbers at the same time!
Just dig out a carrot, figure out what number is on the shovel inside and go on a carrot hunt for that number.
Once you’ve found all of the numbers, you’ve got some fun carrot containers to practice scooping and pouring with!
