A fun, first story sensory bin based on the well-loved children’s classic, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
Miss M (2 years 4 months) loves sensory play. So I chose a familiar story she knows really well, We’re Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, as the basis of our story sensory bin. It helps that she’s right into teddy bears at the moment too!
Set Up Your Story Sensory Bin
To create a story sensory bin, choose a variety of age appropriate sensory materials and arrange them thoughtfully to create an invitation to play. The potential and possibilities are endless and you can really use your imagination. I’ve added a few links at the bottom of this post if you’re looking for more inspiration.
The first step is to choose a bin. I really wanted ours to be contained in a large, shallow bin.
Here are the materials we used in our story bin;
- Grass – shredded green paper
- River – dyed blue rice and gems
- Mud – playdough
- Forest – toy trees
- Snowstorm – cotton wool
- Cave – a box
I encouraged Miss M to move the little people through each area while we told the story together. There are so many fantastic learning opportunities with this story – in particular positional language (over, under, around, through).
For older children, or children who love to get messy (and parents who don’t mind the mess) here are some other ideas of materials that could be used for a bear hunt themed sensory bin;
- Grass – actual grass clippings from the garden
- River – water with blue food colouring
- Mud – well obviously you could use actual mud
- Forest – leaves and twigs from the garden
- Snowstorm – shaving cream mixed in with the cotton wool.
If you love ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ as much as we do – check out this post on my blog, Teacher Types, where you’ll find many more story themed ideas including discovery bottles, a sound story, art work inspiration and free printables. I also loved this post over at Buggy and Buddy where they created their own ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ map complete with binoculars!
And check out our other story sensory tub here at Childhood 101 – this one for Brown Bear, Brown Bear!
Lauren Hunt is an Early Childhood Teacher who currently works part time teaching children in their first year of school. She is also mum to a two year old daughter. Lauren is passionate about play-based, hands-on learning and is certainly kept busy by her energetic toddler!
