Imaginative Play with Sensory Bins: Pretend Food

At this point it should be very clear that I LOVE sensory bins. Love, love, love 'em! They are like magic - fill them up with even the simplest of materials and you can get kids engaged and playing for hours. Recently L has been very interested in dramatic play, particularly in pretend food and dishes, so I decided to make a new sensory bin inspired by this love. And it was so easy, which is just my style!

I filled up our bin with uncooked, uncolored pasta, in keeping with the food theme. (If you are more inclined to colored pasta, you can find the method here.) Then I added in some of L's pretend food and voila! Instant sensory bin full of something of interest and just right for prompting lots of pretend play.

L got to work exploring immediately and was soon busy "cooking" up food in her new bin. She even grabbed her play dishes (but of course!) and before long I was in for a feast!

The best thing about this particular sensory bin was really that it took about two minutes to put together and incorporated something that is already on L's radar - which made it the perfect activity for engaging my busy little gal.

What areas of play are your kids digging these days?