Build Your Name Sensory Bin

Build Your Name Preschool Sensory Bin

Create a Build Your Name Sensory Bin to support preschool literacy development with an engaging hands-on component. 
Sensory bins are always a hit with preschoolers; whether sand, water, or dried beans, you can almost always guarantee your preschoolers will gravitate towards a sensory bin activity. Preschoolers also love practicing and learning their names, so why not tie the two together with this easy to set-up sensory bin?

Invite preschoolers to build their names while digging through dried beans. Including sensory play while reinforcing name practice and building fine motor skills is fun for your little learners. Your preschoolers will work through the bin hunting for the letters in their names and practice placing them in the correct order. Build your name sensory bin can be used with various tools to enhance those small muscles. It's essential to provide preschoolers with opportunities to work on fine motor skills as these muscles are critical for writing, zippering, buttoning, and many other life skills! 
This sensory bin is a great addition to an All About Me Inside & Out Theme. 

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Materials:

• Alphabet letters 
• Beans or rice
• Tray or shallow box
• Assorted tweezers, scoopers or tongs 

Teacher tip: Alphabet erasers or magnetic letters are perfect for this activity. We  recommend ensuring you duplicate them for students who have double letters in their name. Allow preschoolers to explore with different tools for different muscle practice.

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Directions:

Begin by layering your bin with your filler, we used dried beans. Rice or pasta are also great fillers. These trays also work great for individual use! 
*Some great non-food fillers are: sand, aquarium gravel, shredded paper, bird seed and pom poms.

Place the alphabet letters into the bin and mix them up for preschoolers to begin their hunt. Be sure to make sure preschoolers have all the letters to spell their name :)

Have preschoolers use a variety of  tools to begin finding the letters in their name, or just identify the letters as they pick them up. 

Encourage preschoolers to try different tools as they work through the sensory bin. It's great for muscle development and adding an additional challenge to the activity.

This activity can also be used with older kids who are practicing words, a great extension when they are learning to spell simple words. This activity takes only a few minutes to set-up but there are so many benefits. 

We hope you enjoyed this sensory bin activity and can incorporate it at home or in your classrooms for your preschool students! 

You May Also Like:
Free All About Me Inside & Out Theme Planning Page
Sensory Table Ideas 
Preschool Name Activities 
Editable Name Practice