Fabric Scraps Sensory Box

Fun with Fabrics! 
When I mentioned this sensory box idea to a coworker at the preschool she said she didn't think the kids would like it much. I disagree, my own kids love it and I bet the preschoolers will love it too. One benefit of this sensory box is it's age friendliness. This can be used with children starting at age 9 months because you can cut the fabric large enough that it's not a choking hazard, then cut it smaller after your baby is done mouthing everything.

Where to get the materials:
Start by saving all your fabric scraps from sewing (or ask your friends if you don't sew) You may have enough just by keeping your scraps but chances are you'll want to add some mew textures to your sensory table too.

Head to the fabric store and raid the remnants rack. Remnants are portions of fabric that are less than one yard in length. At my local Jo Ann's, they're half off the price of the original fabric so I usually pay less than 2 dollars for each piece.

Types of fabric to consider adding to your table:
burlap
silk
felt
tulle
fancy prom-dress fabrics that have beads built in
flannel
fleece
table-cloth material (shiny vinyl)
faux fur
cotton with bold prints

Other things to add to this box: 
 Ribbon scraps, buttons, large plastic tweezers, pom poms, I would consider hanging a clothes line above or behind the sensory box and including clothes pins in the box for kids to hang up fabric scraps (great fine-motor development activity), Velcro strips, zippers, cups to fill with fabric, toilet paper rolls (stuff the fabric inside, pull out the other side)

Themes:
Anything related to sewing or how-it's-made. The sensory box pictured was created in a home for a child's birthday celebration.

Cotton Ball Sensory Table

Cotton ball ideas for your sensory table

Where to purchase:
This is one item that you'll have to flat-out buy. Luckily, they're not too expensive and they are available at the dollar store, WalMart, and pretty much any general merchandise store. 


Related Thematic Units:
Winter- when snow isn't available or you've already used  snow in your sensory table, cotton balls are a fun alternative. The box shown on the right seems to have a penguin theme (found on Pinterest)
 Included in this box: winter animals like penguins and polar bears, ice cream scoops, pails, mittens, tongs/large tweezers, and ice cube trays.

Polar Express- If your class is reading this book or watching the movie, they may enjoy a polar express train sensory box.
In this box: pails and shovels, trains and train tracks, bells, and small teddy bears, possibly xmas stockings if you celebrate Christmas.  

Construction Sensory Box

Nuts and Bolts construction box

What's included: 
Screws with flat ends (nothing sharp), bolts, nuts, plastic wire caps, metal strips with holes in it (like these)

Other additional objects: allen wrench, wrench, pliers, screwdrivers, toy construction vehicles especially diggers and dump trucks, wooden construction signs, and maybe even a few big magnets.

Where to get this stuff:
I save all the pieces that come with furniture-in-a-box because they usually include extra screws and a "disposable" allen wrench. I also accumulated some of this "junk" while my grandmother was moving out of her home. This is one of the items on my list of things I save.

If you don't have a stock pile of nuts and bolts, I'd recommend starting by calling a local hardware store and asking if they could donate any of these materials to your school. You never know! You could also put an ad on the wanted section of Craigs List; I have obtained large quantities of strange materials like glass jars and egg cartons via CL.

Thematic Units:
Construction (obviously):
This unit may occur because the class or children are particularly interested in construction. This may be especially pertinent when there is construction occurring close to the school or your home or if a parent visits who is a construction worker.

This may also be a larger part of a vehicles/transportation unit or a How-It's-Made unit

No image yet because I have yet to create this sensory box but I will be doing this soon!

Mega List of Sensory Table Ideas

Today was my last day student teaching in preschool. I loved preschool so much that I wanted to create a list of sensory table ideas for preschool educators everywhere!

Not Just Cute, a blog about holistic child development, has a really compelling write up about sensory table benefits here. Check it out!

 Do you have a sensory table in your classroom or home? I think they are  great for children of all ages and can certainly be implemented in a room even without having a fancy sensory table. Buy a long, low under-the-bed storage bin with a lid at a hardware store or WalMart and put it on a classroom table for a sensory station or open it during morning arrival/end of the day departure.

Working in a school that serves many families living under the poverty level, I needed to be conscious of doing any art activities that use food. There is a possibility that we have children in our room who do not have enough to eat at home; using food for frivolous things is cruel to children who are constantly hungry. Therefore, I have assembled the list so that all the non-food ideas are at the top and a few food related ideas are at the bottom. Personally, I will never use the food ideas in a classroom but I may use them in my home.

Many of the ideas are linked to another post discussing the idea and its classroom implementations. I have included in the links ideas for the matching thematic unit of study, items to include with the sensory materials, and where to find these materials without spending a fortune. (Please be patient while I finish all the links)

Pom Poms
Snow
Cotton balls
Batting
Oobleck
Fabric scraps
Feathers
Bird seed
Sand
Water
Milkweed
Beads
Buttons
Dirt
Grass
Wood chips
 Leaves
Twigs
Pine needles
Clay
Tinsel
Xmas balls
Sawdust
Egg Shucks
Cupcake wrappers
Snaps, Zippers, Shoe Laces
Toilet Paper on the roll
Spider webbing
Plastic silverware and wooden spoons, tongs
Small tiles
Bubble wrap
Colored, plastic coated wire
clothes pins
Rubber bands
Tape on rolls
Spools of thread
Rough cuts of wood and various sand papers
Screws, nuts and bolts, electrical caps
Phone book pages or newspaper
Mesh and string
Dental floss
Tin foil
Pipe Cleaners
Foam letters/ shapes
Hole-Punched paper circles
Shells
Bark
Wildflowers
Yarn
Scrabble tiles
Marbles
Paint swatches
Mr. Potato head parts
Coconut bark
Keyboard Keys
Sequins
Puzzle pieces
Various chains
Rubber bits
Packing peanuts
Shaving Cream
Gears
Gravel, pebbles, sand, clay
Sumac plants
Hay
Dice
Native nuts and pine cones
Fish tank gravel
Keys
Nautical rope, fishing line
cocktail umbrellas
Crepe paper
Bones
Rocks
Shredded paper
Easter grass

Unpopped popcorn
Rice
Pasta
Flour
Cornmeal
Kidney beans or mixed beans soup mix
Split peas
Sunflower Seeds
Whole peanuts
Gourds
Indian Corn
Pumpkin chunks or seeds
Coffee grounds or beans
Jello
Oatmeal

Snow Sensory Box

Ideas for your snow sensory box:

Where to get it:
Well, snow comes from the ground in the winter. Hehe. Once a day, go outside and grab a few buckets of snow. The kids will like to play with it even while it's mostly water and once it totally melts you either have a water table or the sensory table is closed for the morning.

Need fake snow? You can use white dove soap and shave it with a fine cheese grater or microwave it, following the directions here.  There are also fake snow products that can be purchased if you'd like to spend some money (I don't want to!)

Related thematic units:

• Welcome to Winter!The first real snow of the season has fallen
• shovels and buckets, snowman building items (twigs, black buttons, tiny scarf, hat)
• Snowing in July (or whatever non-winter month)
• For this sensory table, you'll obviously be using fake snow. This may be used with cotton balls also. 

Related concepts:
I recently heard this science and sensory idea in a teacher-education course in my graduate school program: take a wading pool outside and have the children help build a snowman. Measure his height, diameter of each circle, etc. the age level of the children will dictate how much measuring and data collecting you will do. Then, bring the snowman inside and let him melt into the wadding pool. You can chart his shrinking by measuring him every 20 minutes, and, if you're tech-savvy you can take photos and create a time-elapsed clip of him melting away. Measure the water left over at the very end.

Pom Pom Sensory Box

Pom Pom sensory box ideas:

Where to purchase them: 
I usually turn to Oriental Trading for this material, right now they have 500 pom poms for $6.25

You can also make your own pom poms to mix in a larger size with the store bought ones. Here's a tutorial, it even has a template for the cardboard piece you'll need. Pretty easy!

Related thematic units:

• Ice cream- Maybe you're studying ice cream before you visit an ice cream factory, or maybe you'll be having an ice cream party at the end of the week. 

• Inside this box: ice cream scoop, empty ice cream tubs, plastic spoons, ice cube tray
• I found most of these extra items at garage sales or salvation army
•  Circus- studying the animals, the performers, or preparing for a trip to see the circus live. The bright colors of the pom poms are circus-y to me!
• Inside this box: plastic animals (elephant, tiger, camel, dog, horse), solid plastic bracelets (like mini hula hoops), popcorn boxes

Sensory box for babies

Are you familiar with remnants at your local fabric store? I bet your store has them just like our Jo Ann Fabrics. Remnants are little pieces of fabric left over when the bolt is nearly empty. They're less than a yard. They come in little bundles and, at our store at least, they're half off the price of the fabric. If the fabric is on sale, they're half off the sale price. I am drawn to this bin because the prices are so cheap. I bought 3/4 of a yard of felt for 75 cents! However, it bothers me slightly to buy all these little pieces without a use for them.

On pinterest (of course!) I saw this idea for a sensory box for babies. Developmentally speaking, babies are ALL about senses but many sensory activities are a bit too advanced for "mouthers" like mine (sand, rice, oobleck, etc.) Well this sensory box is all fabric so it's perfect for my little 1-year-old

Here's the box:

It's a wipes tub! I bought a fancy one just for this and put the wipes into my boring white one but if you have one lying around, decorate it with contact paper instead of buying one. I didn't have any spares. 

Inside the box is a long chain of fabrics. I sewed them together. Yep, this one requires you to sew. I know that in the past if I'd read that I'd likely walk away right now. Forget it, sewing is a pain. No! Wait! Stay with me here... it's not that bad!

Actually, this is a great project for novice sewers or if you just bought a new machine and you want to try out all the features. Just sew together lots of strips of fabric! That's it! When you're dealing with tulle and silky materials you need to use a zig-zag stitch to make sure the fabric stays. When you're dealing with cotton you have a choice if you'd prefer a zig-zag or straight stitch and when you're working with really thick fabric you need to use a straight stitch, preferably one with a bit of space between each stitch, so your machine doesn't get bogged down.

I hemmed the rectangles inside out, leaving a little space, flipped them then sewed on top to close the hole. Then I sewed them end-to-end. Here are the fabrics I chose (pardon the poor photography, it's dark and I'm too lazy to move to a well-lit room)



This is a gold linen material with a bit of black tulle sewn on the center:

 Next is cotton black and white polka dots. I chose this pattern because experts say that high contrast black-and-white is more visually appealing to babies.

Attached is hot pink felt (my super cheap find of the day in the remnant bins)

 This picture really doesn't show you how cool this next fabric is, unfortunately. The gold fabric is silky polyester that feels very soft. The white-ish one is a thicker tulle material with tiny rhinestones and silver beads attached. I tried, using my teeth and fingers, to remove the beads and they wouldn't budge. Also, they are smaller than the head of a pin so even if they were to come off they're not a choking hazard because they'd be swallowed without a problem. This material reminds me of a high school prom dress. The beads feel bumpy. Addison was playing with the remnant while we shopped and she kept running her hand up it to feel the texture.

Here is a piece of the same felt but this time I added pompom yarn. This yarn has pompoms attached! I pinned the yarn on the felt then sewed 4 straight lines down the fabric, hitting the yarn vertically.















 I sewed about 8 layers of pink tulle together for a light layer. The tulle was only about 89 cents, by the way. I got 5 colors!

Last, I found this red printed material that is canvas, I think it's intended for outdoor furniture. It's really thick and coarse feeling.




After all the fabrics are sewn together in a long strip, kind of like the handkerchiefs a magician pulls from his sleeve, you just accordion-fold them and stuff them into the empty wipes tub. I pulled one end out a little bit to catch my baby's attention. The fabrics come out of the wipe dispenser easily.

The whole project only cost me about 8 dollars, but you could do it with scraps you have at home and it would be very inexpensive or free if you have a variety of material in your sewing stuff. It was so easy too! Dust off you sewing machine (or get it out of the box if you're new!) and craft today!

Pictures to come of miss Addi playing with her new toy, I finished it after she was in bed