Looking for a unique sensory bin idea for Christmas? Check out this Gingerbread Sensory Bin that’s so much fun for preschoolers! This post also includes a freebie AND a link for more amazing Christmas sensory bin ideas.
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GINGERBREAD THEME IN PRESCHOOL
Gingerbread is a popular theme in many preschool classes in December. It’s perfect since it’s not holiday-specific, so it’s inclusive of all your little learners. Even if you don’t like eating gingerbread (which I do!), you can still do so many fun activities with it!
One of my favorite activities is to create a Gingerbread Sensory Bin with cloud dough. Fair warning: this sensory bin makes quite a big mess! But…it smells AMAZING, it feels so good on your hands, and your little ones will be learning so much…it will *almost* make up for the mess!
Looking for more gingerbread activities? Check out this post!
GINGERBREAD SENSORY BIN
For this activity, I made the gingerbread cloud dough first, put it in our sensory bin, and then added a FREE gingerbread size sorting activity for my preschoolers to complete. There’s a link to download this freebie at the end of this post!
GINGERBREAD CLOUD DOUGH RECIPE
Supplies:
- 4 cups of flour
- 1/2 cup of vegetable oil (you can also use baby oil)
- 1 1/2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1/2 tablespoon ground cloves
- 1/2 tablespoon nutmeg
- I also sprinkled in a little bit of All-Spice!
- For the spices, feel free to use whatever spices you have in whatever quantities you’d like, even if that’s just cinnamon! The above are just suggestions.
- Large bin to put it all in
- Note: Raw flour can carry bacteria that causes disease such as E.coli. I toasted my flour before making this bin by baking it in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.
Directions:
- Mix the flour with the spices.
- Pour in the oil and mix it together.
- Note: Make sure to fully mix your cloud dough, which means there won’t be any patches of just flour. When it’s ready, it won’t be sticky or crumbly…it’ll be a dry dough that clumps well!
EXTEND THE LEARNING
One way we extended the learning with our Gingerbread Sensory Bin was by adding this FREE gingerbread size sorting activity to it! This download comes with six different gingerbread people to sort (3 boys and 3 girls). After my students sorted the gingerbread people, they had a great time exploring the cloud dough and using their imaginations and creativity!
This activity (along with all of our freebies!) can be downloaded from the Free Activity Library. If you’re already a member of our email community, you can click HERE to head to the Free Activity Library, enter your password (it’s on your most current email from me), and download your copy!
If you’d like to join our email community & receive the password as my way of saying THANK YOU for joining, you can click HERE to subscribe. Once you enter your information, the password will be emailed to you within minutes.
FUN FOR ALL AGES
This Gingerbread Sensory Bin isn’t just for preschoolers…it entertains littles of all ages! My toddler son LOVED playing with this, too!
For my toddler, I added in red and green pom poms and a gingerbread man cookie cutter and let him freely explore the gingerbread cloud dough. He loved scooping it since he didn’t want to get his hands dirty!
Do your littles love playing with sensory bins? Do you have any Christmas sensory bins you use with your preschoolers? I’d love to see them! Comment below or find me on Instagram [@littleslovelearningblog] and share them with me!
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Looking for more ideas for sensory play? Click HERE to check out all of our SENSORY posts!
Looking for more holiday fun? Click HERE to check out all of our HOLIDAY posts!
MORE CHRISTMAS SENSORY BINS
Are you interested in more Christmas sensory bins? Check out this post from my friend Kristina from Sweet for Kindergarten for a list of amazing sensory bins to use with your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students. There’s sure to be one on the list that works best for your littles!
Happy Learning!
