Color Recognition Fish Ocean Sensory Bin

Inside: Put together a fish ocean sensory bin that builds color recognition skills! After scooping fish from water, sort and place in matching bowls. Hands-on learning!

Toddlers and preschoolers love to use real aquarium fish nets! I shared our ocean theme sensory bin where these nets were a huge hit with the small aquarium rock and pretend sea creatures. But I wanted something that would be easier for toddlers and young preschoolers without any choking hazards. Hello fun color sorting fish sensory bin!

It’s all about scooping and pouring with this age group. For this reason, I try to find fun ways to incorporate these in our sensory bins. Water is always a favorite, but sand and other materials work well, too. Also, if we have a child who likes to dump toys, we can redirect him to this type of sensory bin.

Color Recognition Fish Ocean Sensory Bin

Good ol’ Amazon did it again! I was searching for chunky plastic fish that toddlers could hold in their hands, scoop and pour. When I found what I was looking for, I realized I could pull together a color-sorting activity in our sensory bin.

Ta da!

I grabbed our color sorting bowls and aquarium fish nets, filled our sensory bin with water, and it was ready. That easy!

(Note: Since writing this post, the chunky plastic fish we used are no longer available. 😢 Something like these might work, though.)

The first thing the children did was fill the nets with as many fish as they could. They weren’t even thinking about the colors.

They then dumped the fish into the bowls. Again, not thinking about sorting them by color.

They were simply having fun building their fine motor skills while filling and dumping, over and over again.

But then they started paying attention to the colors of the fish and the colors of the bowls, as shown in this video:

Super simple and fun, right?

For those of you at home, try this in the bathtub!

More fun water table ideas:

Frog Water Bin

Toddler Ocean Water Bin

Weather Sensory Bin