This weird, kinda gross, but totally fun Halloween themed sensory bin activity will keep your kiddo busy with some hands-on learning! It’s part of our 31 Super Fun Halloween Activities for Preschool!
Sensory activities are a wonderful way to engage your child’s senses, curiosity, and creativity! They also help with the development of language and motor skills.
I have a sensory seeking little girl who needs a lot of stimulation in her day. Depending on your child’s personality and energy level, this activity can go many ways. I used this to work on color recognition, sorting, and motor skills. As you can see my daughter put her own spin on it as she always does and turned it into a game of bobbing for eyeballs. So it’s very versatile!
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Here’s what you’ll need to make it:
- Spaghetti Noodles – plain so you can color them to your liking but you could also use the noodles made with vegetables that are already colored (plain, green, orange, and sometimes red)
- Food coloring– Neon colors make bright noodles! We are actually food dye free in our house so I used this natural food coloring by Watkin’s instead of regular food coloring.
- Eyeball Ping Pong Balls – check your local dollar store but Amazon also sells this pack of Hollow Plastic Eyeballs
- Creepy Crawly Spiders or Spider Rings– check your local dollar store but Amazon also has this pack of Purple, Orange, Black and Green Plastic Spiders
- 1 large plastic container and 3 smaller containers (for sorting stuff) – I used a shoe box sized one for the large container
- Fine Motor Tweezers and a Handy Scooper – these give a bit of a challenge to pulling things out of the bin and make the activity last longer. We have this set of Learning Resources Fine Motor Tools, it comes with 4 tools (including the 2 shown in the picture). A plain ol’ spoon will work too.
And here’s how to put the sensory bin together:
- Make the colored noodles of your choice – I used the steps from Family Fresh Meals – How to Make Rainbow Pasta Noodles to make my noodles.
- Note 1: I cooked my noodles a bit al dente so they could without my child’s manhandling.
- Note 2: if you are using the Watkin’s Natural Food Dye the colors are not going to come out as vibrant as standard food dye. I was fine with it because I knew my daughter was OK eating the noodles.
- Next, add the noodles to your large container and then add in the eyeballs and spiders.
- Arrange the smaller containers nearby the larger container. Then let your child dig in!
You can have them sort the eyeballs and spiders into different containers based on color using the Learning Resources Fine Motor Tools (or their hands or mouth). You could also have them sort only eyeballs, or only spiders.
If you have multiple kids, assign them a color and do a race to see who can get all of their color into their container first. Or time them and see who can get everything sorted out of their bin first.
Have fun and get creative with it!
Also try our other sensory play activities like the Halloween Hair Gel Sensory Bag, or the Pumpkin Name Practice Sensory Bin!
