Home » Kid's Activities » sensory play » Construction Site Activity Bin for Toddlers and Preschoolers
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With a few simple supplies and a handful of toys, you can create a construction site sensory bin that toddlers and preschoolers will play with for hours.
We’ve been having a field day with our sensory bins lately.
We’ve made a dinosaur bin, an ocean bin and and yesterday I set up this construction site bin in a foil roasting pan. This foil pan has held many sensory bins and small worlds in its time.
This particular bin kept the hooligans busy, off and on, all morning.
What toadd to a construction site sensory bin:
A construction site bin is fun and easy to put together.
For ours, I just looked through the toy room and around the yard, and I put together a few items that seemed perfect for a construction site: a few blocks, some rocks and sticks, several coloured glass beads.
I added some sand from the sandbox and a few construction vehicles and construction worker figures.
If you don’t have access to sand, you could also use coffee grounds or dry rice. You could even colour it brown to look like sand.
The kids had the greatest time moving and bulldozing the sand around the bin and making their workers work hard.
The stacked small sticks, which looked like logs, in the wheel barrow and they filled the backs of their trucks with beads and stones and sand.
I added a small piece of PVC pipe to the bin, which made the perfect holding container for stones and beads.
Edited to add: We’ve had our construction site bin out for days now, and these two guys never tire of it. They’ve spent hours building, digging and bulldozing this week.
I have a feeling we’ll be playing with this bin one for a while yet.
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Jackie Currie
Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
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Comments
I just love all of these bins you have been sharing! I especially love the water based worlds you have shared lately. So fun!
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Cindy
Hi Jackie – my first experience doing a sensory bin – I’m wondering what exactly you used in the pictures above for the base? I tried very white light sand which was to slippery and fine for the construction site. I want this for a indoor bin. I tried rice and didn’t like that either ~ found it to loose for moving about the trucks. Can you advise me on what products you have liked for the base? Is there a better type of sand? Appreciate your comments / loving all of the sensory bins.
Thank you !
CindyReply
happyhooligans
I used sand from my sandbox for this, Cindy. You can usually buy a smallish bag of Sandbox Sand at Walmart for about 5 dollars.
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Jo Waltrop (Tennessee)
So glad I found your site. It has some GREAT ideas. We did the dinosaur bin .A 6yr old grandson & his 4yr old cousin (a girl). They had a wonderful time. Thank you. Keep your ideas coming.c
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Lori Stepping
Love this bin, Jackie! My grandsons will enjoy it as well. My question regards the problem we are having playing outside at all this summer. The mosquitos here in our yard have been so bad we have been reluctant to go outside to play. We have a lot of woods around us here. Do you have similar problems where you are? What kind of preventive measures do you use (e.g. bug repellant) with your kids before going outside? Thanks for your input.
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happyhooligans
I’ve heard the little clip=on fans by “off” are quite effective. We tend to play in the sunny/open part of our yard when it’s buggy, but I’ve heard great things about those clips. If I have to resort to bug spray, I prefer to give the children’s hats and clothing a quick spritz rather than spraying their bodies directly. Even then, I do it only rarely, as I’m really not big on the chemicals.
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Love this. Just added it to a roundup. I like how easy it is to set up and how open-ended the play is with these bins. Super neat.
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“a construction bin” it sounds so great! I love this idea ! I have to do it quickly, I’m sure my son’ll love it !
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[…] construction sensory bin is sure to be a hit. Grab some of the smaller construction vehicles, sticks, rocks, figures, blocks […]
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