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You are here: Home / Christmas Activities / Easy Gingerbread Sensory Bin for Toddlers and Preschoolers

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Easy Gingerbread Sensory Bin for Toddlers and Preschoolers

November 30, 2016 by Sheryl Cooper

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Inside: You will love this easy gingerbread sensory bin for toddlers and preschoolers! Super easy to put together, lots of fun to play with. Win, win!

I was minding my own business, sipping hot coffee while wasting time on Amazon, when I saw them.

Boxes with lids, shaped like gingerbread people.

Without hesitation, I put them in my cart and clicked ORDER.

My mind starting spinning with the possibilities. What about painting them and using them as gift boxes? Or, using them as a 1:1 correspondence activity? They’d be a great color sorting activity if I painted each one a different color. They’d be loved in the block corner, too!

After allowing my mind to come up with lots of possibilities, I knew just how I wanted to use them.

In the sensory bin!

Easy Gingerbread Sensory Bin for Toddlers and Preschoolers

 

Easy Gingerbread Sensory Bin for Toddlers and Preschoolers

So, here are the little darlings that caught my eye on Amazon.

Christmas Gingerbread Sensory Play for Preschoolers

 

Gingerbread boy shaped paper mache boxes. 

I fell in love immediately. Our preschoolers love any containers with lids. But gingerbread men? I had never seen these before.

I got all giddy, just like when I found the pumpkin jingle bells.

Fellow teachers, please tell me I’m not alone here!

And so then I knew we needed little gingerbread men bendables to put inside the gingerbread containers. And we already had a gingerbread house.

My mind was spinning, I tell you! When my purchases arrived over Thanksgiving break, I was in the kitchen dying rice red and green. While the turkey was defrosting and I needed to get the table cleared and set for guests. Just being real here!

But, I did have some restraint. I did NOT go into my classroom during the break. I actually waited until that Monday morning before the preschoolers arrived.


Christmas Gingerbread Sensory Play for Preschoolers

I got everything set up before the classroom door opened. We read our first gingerbread book before opening centers time.

Christmas Gingerbread Sensory Play for Preschoolers

When it was centers time, this Christmas gingerbread sensory play activity was an immediate hit. First they wanted to fill the gingerbread house with rice.

Christmas Gingerbread Sensory Play for Preschoolers

 

And then they started playing with the little gingerbread figures.

 

Christmas Gingerbread Sensory Play for Preschoolers

They decided to see if they could fit all 12 in one of the gingerbread man boxes. They counted them as they placed them inside.

Christmas Gingerbread Sensory Play for Preschoolers

 

They couldn’t all fit inside, so then they placed one gingerbread boy figure inside each cardboard gingerbread boy box. 1:1 correspondence!

 

Then I noticed the preschoolers lining them up along the edge of the sensory bin. More counting and figuring out that they all weren’t completely the same.

Christmas Gingerbread Sensory Play for Preschoolers

 

You can see a video of our preschoolers actually playing with this on Instagram.

We will expand on this activity with some gingerbread man cookie baking tomorrow!


Easy Gingerbread Sensory Bin for Toddlers and Preschoolers


Gingerbread Theme Activities

We love starting the Christmas season with a gingerbread theme! There are so many fun activities out there, just perfect for toddlers and preschoolers.

See more here: How to Put Together a Gingerbread Theme

More Gingerbread Fun!

pumpkin printable pack
TPT gingerbread pack

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Filed Under: Christmas Activities, preschool, Sensory Bins, Toddlers Tagged With: preschool, sensory, toddlers

About Sheryl Cooper

Sheryl Cooper is the founder of Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, a website full of activities for toddlers and preschoolers. She has been teaching this age group for over 20 years and loves to share her passion with teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone with young children in their lives.

Previous Post: « 12 Fun Christmas Dramatic Play Activities
Next Post: 22 Fun Christmas Sensory Play Activities »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lena Fushman

    December 1, 2016 at 7:49 pm

    Fun activity with so much learning!!!

    • Sheryl Cooper

      December 2, 2016 at 1:16 pm

      Thank you, Lena!

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