If your house is like mine, unicorns are the theme of the month (actually the year!). Everything seems to be unicorn themed at the moment and we’re currently preparing to host a unicorn party! It probably comes as no surprise that the unicorn sensory bin we made last week was played with a LOT!
Unicorn Sensory Bin
When working through the fun and adorable unicorn preschool activity pack we made this EASY Unicorn Slime Recipe, Unicorn Yogurt Bites and this unicorn theme sensory bin. Whether you choose to use a pony or a unicorn, the colors here are sure to delight!
We had a lot of fun deciding what to go into our unicorn sensory bin. We actually set out to make some oobleck as the base, but my daughters decided that they didn’t want their unicorn toys to get messy! We wandered around the baking aisle since we were already there and came across the shredded coconut. We really wanted to make it a ‘cloud like’ sensory bin but didn’t feel that cotton wool balls were the right fit. The coconut was perfect! We knew we wanted some color in the mix so found some jelly/jello crystals. These have a glittery look to them because of the sugar which let us have a glittery effect without actually adding glitter. The final item we bought for our base was sprinkles – you can’t have a unicorn sensory bin without sprinkles! Some marshmallows topped off our ‘clouds’ and we were ready to go!
For this sensory bin, I set it up a little bit different from usual. I had the main items in a container but kept the containers outside of the container on a mat. This was just to mix it up a little. If you prefer to keep all of the items in a container, simply choose a larger container.
What you need for a unicorn sensory bin
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- Sensory tub
- Shredded coconut
- Jelly crystals – I used raspberry ones which were a purple color but any will work
- Sprinkles
- Marshmallows (I used white and pink ones)
- Spoons and scoops
- Bowl – I used a pink one to stick with our theme
- Heart shaped ice cube moulds (optional but these were a hit1)
- Toy unicorns. We already had a lot at home but if you need some I recommend ones like these or these ponies.
How to set up your unicorn sensory bin
We love making sensory bins! My kids adore playing with them and look forward to their new sensory bin each month.
- Fill your bowl about 1/2 full with coconut
- Sprinkle your jelly crystals over the coconut. These tend to sink to the bottom a little but that’s ok – it ends up being a bit of a surprise when they start playing with it!
- Add in your sprinkles
- Scatter your marshmallows around. I tried to make clouds.
- Add in your scoops and place your bowls and ice cube moulds around the container
- Add in your unicorns
- Let them play!
How they played with their unicorn sensory bin
The first time I set up this activity it stayed out for most of the day and they kept coming back to play with it. It also came out quite a lot over the next week or two. I had leftover of most of the fillers so I would just top it up when it was needed.
This sensory bin prompted a lot of pretend play. They played babies, they reenacted what I’m pretty sure are episodes of My Little Pony and there was an awful lot of scooping and playing and generally making a mess!
Some of the otherways my girls (aged 4 and 6) played with this are:
- Feeding the unicorns the marshmallows
- They placed marshmallows on their horn (apparently that made them extra magic) and they buried them in the coconut.
- Lots of scooping!
- More feeding of the unicorns, this time in the heart moulds
I hope your children enjoy this unicorn sensory bin as much as mine did. This is definitely one that we will making again! Don’t forget to check out all of our fun printable activity packs.
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