Super Simple Toddler Ocean Sensory Bin

Inside: Create a toddler ocean sensory bin that includes nets and jumbo sea creatures! Those little hands and fingers will be strengthened as the children scoop the nets in and out of the water. A fun hands-on learning activity!

Catching fish and other sea creatures using nets is always fun.

You might remember our ocean sensory bin that our preschoolers loved so much.

I used a similar idea, but adapted it for our younger children by using jumbo sea creatures. They were the perfect size for their hands! And, like all of our water table activities, this was well loved. Plus, it’s really easy to set up!

Super Simple Toddler Ocean Sensory Bin

What we used:

• Fish aquarium nets
• Bug catcher nets
• Jumbo Ocean Animals, similar to these
• Sensory bin (you can see ours here)
• We also added a bit of blue liquid watercolors

Setting up this toddler ocean sensory bin:

Add water to the sensory bin, with some blue tint (if desired). Add the ocean animals and the nets.

The children loved using the nets, as I suspected. But they also used their hands to make the ocean animals swim.

Then, they showed me how many ocean animals they could fit into a net.

This is a great opportunity to ask them what type of ocean animals are in their nets.

What colors are they? Which one is the biggest?

And then, we stopped to say hi to the real fish that live in the aquarium in our hallway.

While having fun with this toddler ocean sensory bin, we also made an ocean in a bottle.

You can see how our classroom was set up for our beach theme in this post.

More toddler ocean activities:

Color Sorting Fish Water Table

Spool-Stamped Fish Art

Ocean Discovery Bottles

Toddler and Preschool Ocean Lesson Plans

We’ve done the work for you! We now have interactive thematic lesson plans for toddlers (18-36 months) AND preschoolers (3-5 years)!

I helped create these lesson plans along with a talented group of early childhood educators and home schoolers.

Easy to follow lesson plans include activity modifications and adaptations to meet the needs of all learners.

These activities come in a digital format. That means after you make a purchase, the links to the activities will arrive in an email.

For more information, click on the graphics below: