Autumn Sensory Bin- Play Challenge

I saw the 30 days to play challenge that is going on at Imagination Tree and Hands on: as we grow which you can read more about here: 
Imagination Tree
Hands on: as we grow

I joined the challenge a little late on day 9 but I am going to try to do the previous ideas this month as well. The challenge for Day 9 was to play with a sensory bin. I had a Halloween bin we had been playing with so I took out the Halloween stuff and added leaves, fall colored blocks, foam turkeys, a few trees, pine cones and pasta.

I also put out a bunch of cups and toilet paper tubes for dumping and filling.

 First I play with E while we were waiting for big brother's bus. He saw the trees and a few other things and said he wanted to make a zoo. I went with his ideas and we got some animals and played zoo.

L was excited to see what we had set up when he got off the bus. he had fun exploring with us and had the idea to plant the trees in containers so they could "grow". We had lots of fun with this challenge and can't wait to try the others.

Alphabet Dig!

I'm feeling a little under the weather today so I was trying to think of a few simple activities to do. I saw this alphabet puzzle from the dollar store and thought what could I do with that? Then I came up the idea to combine it with one of the boys favorite activities digging in rice and came up with Alphabet Dig! I may have seen this idea somewhere but I can't remember so let me know if it's your idea and I will credit you. Thanks.

You will need- a alphabet puzzle (other puzzles would work too), bin, rice or beans and some scoops.

First take the puzzle apart and put in the bin.

Add enough rice to cover.

Add scoops.

Set up the bin next to the empty puzzle and let the kids have fun finding the letters and putting in the puzzle. I had planned on doing this inside on a sheet but it was so nice we moved it outside.

This was a big hit with my boys they played it twice and worked together very nicely.