St. Patrick's Sensory Bin

After painstakingly (with the help of hubby) removing all the red macaroni from the sensory bin (plus all the easier-to-remove odds and ends) I refilled it with green items for St. Patrick's Day!

Normally I would have left Valentine's Day in a little longer, but since Easter is so early this year, I wanted to make sure we had at least a few weeks of St. Patrick's Day to play with.  This is the most often I've ever changed out the sensory bin, and the most themed contents I've included.  Kal'El really seems to get quite a kick out of it, I enjoy having time with him alone while Zaxxon is in preschool, and Kal'El still isn't big enough for more structured crafts, so I've been trying to give him more variety here.

In the bin:

• green and yellow macaroni
• split peas
• green pom poms
• green and gold sparkly pom poms
• green porcupine balls
• green glass stones
• gold coins
• mini shamrocks I cut off a bead necklace
• a larger, sparkly shamrock
• a green frog cup
• spoons, cups, and containers
• (a green duck worked its way in there later, entirely without my help)

I see something new inside...

I want to play with it!  Let's put it on the blanket...

As usual, Kal'El loved it.  He's still learning the rules of the bin--namely that the items need to stay inside the bin and he needs to clean up any messes right away.  It's a work in progress.  But it's so much fun to explore it with him.

Zaxxon plays with it, too.  He also likes to see new contents, and although he has the patience and ability to search more for treasures and sort things out, he also loses interest faster these days.

Strangely, Kal'El has no interest in the gold coins.  He loves the other contents though, and claimed all the shamrocks as "mine!"  I think we have a hit!

(Of course, picking the macaroni separate from the split peas when I'm ready to fill this with Easter is going to be an even bigger pain.  Oh well, it's worth it!)