Make your little bunny happy with this entertaining Spring Easter Egg Sensory Bin! Kids love animals, especially the bunnies and plastic eggs after a long and arduous hunt to gather them all and to find chocolate, colorful jelly beans, and small toys inside! If you like easy DIY spring sensory bins, then you’ll adore my DIY Spring Easter Grass Sensory Bin and my St. Patrick’s Day Rainbow Sensory Bin!
The anticipation during the entire Easter egg hunt has finally paid off as she gets to reveal her surprises! I think that’s probably every toddler, preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school aged kid, right? The best part of the Easter egg hunt is ALWAYS quickly opening each Easter egg that was gathered to see the goods! At least, that was me when I was younger and is probably most children.
Sensory bins don’t need to be complex. Simple works and is completely fine. This plastic or toy carrots, you can surely substitute with other Easter-themed toys or adding more plastic eggs. Kids LOVE plastic Easter eggs!
Items needed to make a Spring Easter Egg Sensory Bin
Rice. White rice works best when dying rice into colors. We like this rice the best.
White vinegar. White vinegar helps preserve the rice and prevents it from molding. I’ve dyed rice countless times to make sensory bins and even 2-3 years later, my rice is still good to go and use in my sensory bins.
Food coloring. You’ll need blue, yellow, and orange food coloring to make this.
Plastic carrots. Amazon sells these cute plastic toy carrots.
Plastic eggs. Use plastic Easter eggs or other Easter-themed toys for your sensory bin.
Benefits of Sensory Play
- Children learn best when they can touch and feel things so providing them with a tiny environment where they can make a mess is important
- Kids get to learn, experiment, and discover the huge world around them
- Sensory bins promote fine motor skills
- Enhances imaginative skills as they pretend play inside the sensory bin (themes are great for this reason)
- Promotes critical thinking skills and problem-solving as kids need to analyze and evaluate multiple different scenarios while “working inside this miniature house” because the bin idea is similar to a kid playing in a miniature-sized house.
- The sensory base (i.e., rice, beans, popcorn kernels, etc.) teaches kids sounds. For instance, beans falling sounds a lot heavier than rice falling.
- They calm anxious children. When kids realize that the sensory bin is calming them, they will resort to playing with it repeatedly in the future.
- Teaches toddlers language development as they learn differences and similarities, empty and full, up and down, etc.
Why Sensory Play is Important
According to Infantino’s article, sensory play helps build nerve connections in the brain. Learning about the world through their different senses helps to develop pathways between neurons. The more experience your little one has with one type of experience, the stronger that pathway becomes. Unfortunately, if a pathway is not used often enough, it can completely disappear.
Sensory play and language development work together in tandem. Because sensory play helps support early development, cognitive growth, fine and gross motor skills, problem-solving skills, and social development, it can help with language development. Kids learn about the big world around them through sensory play. If they get the opportunity to observe how their peers play, they learn and therefore grow socially.
How to Make the Best Spring Easter Egg Sensory Bin
STEP 1: To dye the rice, place the rice in 3 separate large ziptop freezer bags. Add 1 teaspoon white vinegar and a few drops of blue, yellow, and orange food coloring in each bag, making sure to keep the colors separated by freezer bag. Mix well and pour onto foil-lined baking sheets, separated by color. Let dry for about 1 hour.
STEP 2: Place the blue dyed rice on the far left of your yellow rice into the bin. Use your hand to further align it to the left. Carefully place the orange rice on the right. Try to keep the columns as neat as possible.
STEP 3: Place your Easter toy carrots at a cheap dollar store, Amazon sells these adorable plastic carrots. Kids love plastic Easter eggs and get to use their fine motor skills as part of this play-based learning activity.
More Easter crafts you’ll love!
Easy Toddler and Kid Easter Crafts
St. Patrick’s Day Rainbow Sensory Bin
Easy Brown Bag Easter Bunny Craft
Final Thoughts
Finally, if you make this Spring Easter Egg Sensory Bin, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this DIY sensory bin a rating! I love to hear from everyone who makes this sensory bin and always try my best to respond to all comments.
If you do make this sensory bin, don’t forget to tag #elisemccollister on Instagram! It makes me so happy to see your sensory bin photos!
Spring Easter Egg Sensory Bin
Materials
Instructions
- To dye the rice, place the rice in 3 separate large ziptop freezer bags. Add 1 teaspoon white vinegar and a few drops of blue, yellow, and orange food coloring in each bag, making sure to keep the colors separated by freezer bag. Mix well and pour onto foil-lined baking sheets, separated by color. Let dry for about 1 hour.
- Place the blue dyed rice on the far left and push it as far as it will go toward the left. Carefully dump the yellow rice. Use your hand to further align it to the left. Carefully place the orange rice on the right. Try to keep the columns as neat as possible.
- Place your Easter toys in the bin.
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