I love making simple sensory bags for the kids, this nature sensory bag is no exception. They’re easy to make, super fast, and gives the kids something to explore in a fun way. I find them super entertaining for toddlers.
We’ve recently done learning sensory bags for the older boys, making them ‘I Spy’ sensory bags to find letters and math equations (for my first grader).
But my favorite one we’ve done in the past was so simple, just some googly eyes to explore. (It was during the Halloween season).
We needed to explore something for other seasons, right? This is perfect for Spring with all the little bits of nature peeking up now.
The boys did their part to help me make this nature sensory bag.
They went outside to collect flowers and leaves (make it a scavenger hunt!) to add to the sensory bag while I added hair gel to a gallon-size baggy. I buy the cheapest hair gel I can possibly find (affiliate link, this was L.A. Looks which brought back funny memories). This gel was blue in the bottle and I didn’t have a lot left, maybe half a bottle, but it was enough! I love that it didn’t end up looking too blue either.
It took them awhile because we don’t have many flowers yet in our yard, so they had to head to Grandpa’s yard to find gorgeous flowers (he gave them the okay to pick them).
Once the boys got back with their nature finds, I added them to the bag of gel.
I decided on a front side of the sensory bag and tried my best to lay the flowers flat facing that side.
I didn’t double bag it, but you could if you’re worried about holes or it leaking.
I taped the nature sensory bag to our front door that’s a full glass window to make it a suncatcher too! It looked so pretty with the light shining through.
Another project! Make a nature suncatcher.
Louis explored the flowers with his fingers. He tried to move them around a little, squishing it.
The older boys were playing outside when they saw Louis in the door with his sensory bag and decided they needed to play with it too!
Louis also thought it was time for him to go outside at the same time because he saw the older boys. So they literally swapped places and then Louis realized he wanted to be inside when he saw them playing with the sensory bag. Oh the fun of a toddler!
You can find a week of simple activities for a 2 year old here!
Henry thought he could spot pairs of flowers and match them together by moving them in the sensory bag. He didn’t have very good luck moving them though, the flowers kept breaking apart (but that leads me to an idea for a puzzle sensory bag sometime!).
My one big tip with sensory bags that I failed with this time is to make sure you get all the air out of the baggy. After putting the flowers in the bag full of gel, I forgot to squeeze it out until later. While Henry was trying to move the flowers around, some started falling to the bottom of the bag as the gel was beginning to settle. If I had sucked the air out it wouldn’t have happened, at least not as soon as it did.
Nature Sensory Bag Suncatcher on handsonaswegrow.com
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