Picnic-Themed Sensory Play Setup for Toddlers

Picnic-Themed Sensory Play Setup for Toddlers

Transform your sensory play space into a fun and educational picnic adventure! This picnic-themed sensory play setup is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers, combining creativity, fine motor skills, and imaginative play. With hands-on activities like kite-making, felt food picnics, and bug sorting, your child will enjoy hours of meaningful learning through play.

List of Materials Needed

• Printable picnic-themed sensory play kit from GoodnightFox

• Felt food (sandwiches, fruits, desserts)

• Printables for kite-making (or construction or craft paper)

• Picnic blanket

• Kid-safe scissors, markers, and string for kite activity

• Sorting tray or small containers for bug activity

• Play bugs: ladybugs, ants, butterflies, snails (printables included)

• Place settings (plates, utensils, napkins)

Overview of Learning Objectives by Age Group

• Age 0-6mo: Sensory exposure with textures and colors on the picnic blanket.

• Age 6mo-12mo: Encouraging grasping and sensory exploration with felt food.

• Age 12mo-2yr: Developing fine motor skills by handling felt food and sorting bugs.

• Age 3yr-4yr: Imaginative play with kite flying and picnic setups.

• Age 4yr-6yr: Practicing counting, sorting, and problem-solving with bug activity.

Decor Setup

This sensory play setup mimics a sunny day picnic! Spread a cheerful picnic blanket on the floor or table and arrange colorful felt food, plates, and utensils. Add paper kites for an imaginative twist, and bring in the printable bug sorting page for a fun, themed educational activity.

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Activity 1: Make a Cut-Out Kite & Pretend to Fly It

Materials List:

• Printable Kite

• Scissors

• String or yarn

• Markers or crayons (optional)

Activity Instructions:

1. Provide your child with colorful paper and help them cut out a kite shape.

2. Decorate the kite with markers, stickers, or crayons.

3. Attach string or yarn to the kite for a handle.

4. Encourage your child to “fly” their kite around the sensory play area, pretending it’s a windy day!

Learning Objectives:

• Strengthening fine motor skills with cutting and drawing.

• Encouraging imaginative play and storytelling.

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Activity 2: Felt Food Pretend Picnic

Materials List:

• Felt food (or play food alternatives)

• Plates, cups, napkins, utensils

• Picnic blanket

Activity Instructions:

1. Show your child how to set the picnic place settings.

2. Let them arrange felt food items on the plates.

3. Encourage pretend play as they serve food to “guests” or stuffed animals.

Learning Objectives:

• Developing spatial awareness while setting the table.

• Boosting social-emotional skills through pretend play.

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Sensory Bin 3: Count and Sort the Picnic Bugs

Materials List:

• Printable bug sorting page from GoodnightFox

• Play bugs (ladybugs, ants, butterflies, snails)

• Sorting tray or containers

Activity Instructions:

1. Lay out the printable sorting page with labeled sections for each type of bug.

2. Have your child count and sort the bugs into categories.

3. Discuss bug characteristics (color, shape, etc.) for added educational value.

Learning Objectives:

• Strengthening counting and sorting skills.

• Introducing early science concepts about insects.

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Benefits of Sensory Play

Sensory play setups like this picnic theme foster creativity, problem-solving, and fine motor development. It also encourages independent play, helping toddlers stay busy and engaged. Through sorting and imaginative activities, children develop cognitive and social-emotional skills crucial for early childhood learning.

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Week-Long Picnic Themed Lesson Plan

Saturday & Sunday:

• Engage with the full picnic-themed sensory play setup.

Monday:
• Make and decorate a paper picnic basket craft.
• Create picnic-themed coloring pages.
• Practice counting with felt food items.

Tuesday:
• Build a bug house using recycled materials.
• Explore nature (real or pretend) to find bugs.
• Pretend to pack a picnic basket for an outdoor adventure.

Wednesday:
• Play a memory game with felt food pieces.
• Use the kite to act out a storytelling game about a picnic day.
• Engage in a scavenger hunt for picnic items around the house.

Thursday:
• Practice simple addition and subtraction with felt food.
• Sing songs about bugs and picnics.
• Sort picnic items by color or size.

Friday:
• Host a “picnic party” with stuffed animals or friends.
• Create a bug habitat diorama.
• Write a simple story about a picnic adventure.

25 Picnic-Themed Vocabulary Words

1. Picnic

2. Blanket

3. Basket

4. Kite

5. Ant

6. Butterfly

7. Ladybug

8. Snail

9. Felt

10. Plate

11. Cup

12. Napkin

13. Sandwich

14. Apple

15. Cookie

16. Pretend

17. Sort

18. Count

19. Fly

20. Summer

21. Grass

22. Trees

23. Table

24. Fun

25. Friends

Bring this picnic-themed sensory play setup to life with your little ones and create lasting memories through imaginative and educational activities!

Easter Egg Color SortIng

Sofie had so much fun playing with these cute little foam Easter eggs. I scored these cuties on Amazon and was planning on adding them as an Easter Basket filler, but turns out they were perfect for an early Easter sensory bin activity. We pulled out her pastel colored stacking cups and I taught her how to sort the colors. She was definitely more interested in pouring and scooping than sorting, but hey!

Easter Sensory Bin:

• Foam Easter Eggs

• Pastel Stacking Cups

• Wood Decor

• Easter Printable Decor Kit

Easter Bunny Bait Activity

I’ve seen so much gorgeous Pinterest inspiration this Easter and I just had to try making my own Bunny Bait! I was so nervous to make this because I thought popcorn and candy melts would be so much work and too much mess for a 2. year old. But it turns out this was super simple and easy to make.

Easter Bunny Bait

• Step 1: Pop a bag of popcorn: I used Skinny Pop because I love how buttery and salty it tastes while still being low calorie

• Step 2: Use white Candy Melts and separate about a 1/4 cup into 3 small ramekins

• Step 3: Pop the ramekins in the microwave for about 1min 30sec or 2min. They should start to look melted!

• Step 4: Stir up the melted chocolate until it’s smooth. Add more time in the microwave if needed.

• Step 5: Drop a few drops of pastel food color into each bowl. I used pink, orange, and green.

• Step 6: Pour the candy melts over the popcorn and mix with a spoon or your hands until the popcorn is covered.

• Step 7: Let it set out to dry! Then add sprinkles, marshmallows, bunny grahams, pastel M&M’s and any other sweet treats you desire!

If you want to send this as a treat for your kids classroom or friends at the park, simply bag it up in ziploc baggies or clear cellophane 5x7 Bags and use this printable DIY Easter Kit for these adorable labels.

Farm Animal Sensory Bin

Today I set up this Farm Animal sensory bin which I’ve been meaning to do for a long time now! I used lentils and corn for the filler along with some pumpkin seeds and peanut butter pretzels for the hay bales. I had some extra pasta shells from another activity so I tossed those in too!

Here’s a full list of supplies:

• GoodnightFox Farm Animal Flashcards

• Goodnightfox Vegetable Flashcards

• Lovevery Animal Figurines

• Oak and Co Chicken and Carrot

• TouchThinkLearn Farm Book

• Lifecycle of a Chicken Cards

• Lifecycle Learning Board

Flower Shop Dramatic Play

Spring is here! And I’m so happy with how this little Flower Shop turned out. It was the perfect way to celebrate spring and also Sofie’s love of watering plants and flowers. I designed this little Flower Market setup in some awesome boho neutral colors which was so much because my typical palette is so colorful. For this one, I wanted the theme to be a bit more subtle and neutral to match with the white and green flowers.

Here are some of the supplies you’ll need:

• Flower Shop Dramatic Play Kit

• Fake Flowers Tulips and Mums

• Wooden Dowel for Flag

• Flower Puzzle by Busy Littles

• Flower Play Tray by Kinderspiel

• Glass Sorting Jars

• Ribbon

• Hot Glue Gun

• Flower Pots

• Flisat Table plus Skadis Peg Board

• Toddler sized watering can

Also check out the amazing Pockets of Sweetness on instagram for some more flower shop inspiration. She used this printable kit to do a lovely little flower cart that is just unbelievably adorable.

Flower Instructions

For the long pedals:

1. Cut out all of the pedals

2. Cut out the circle center

3. Glue the pedals around the circle starting with the outside edge and working your way toward the center

4. Cut out the yellow strips of paper and fold in half long ways.

5. Then cut slots on the white lines

6. Roll in a circle to get the center of the flower

For the Rose:

Rainbow Cinnamon Rolls

If you’re looking for an amazing way to wake up on St. Paddy’s Day morning, look no further than this awesome rainbow cinnamon roll recipe! These were so much fun to make and even better to eat. You’re going to absolutely love them.

Dough Ingredients:

• 2 Cups Whole Milk

• 4 TSP Instant Yeast

• 6 TBSP Brown Sugar

• 4 TBSP Butter, Melted

• 2 TSP Salt

• 1 TSP Ground Nutmeg

• 4 Cups All Purpose Flour

• Food Coloring

Filling Ingredients:

• 4 TBSP Butter

• 1/4 Cup White Sugar

• 1/4 Cup Brow Sugar

• 1 TBSP Cinnamon

• I doubled the filling so that it would have extra filling!

Icing:

• Powdered Sugar

• Vanilla

• Heavy Cream

Begin by heating your mil to 110F. Them remove from heat and stir in the yeast and let sit for 5 minutes. While the milk and yeast are blooming, add the butter, brown sugar, and salt to your mixing bowl with the dough hook attachment. Next add your yeast and milk mixture to the mixing bowl and add in 2 cups of flour. Being to mix until the dough beings to pull away from the sides of the bowl. If the dough looks sticky, still add in another 1/4c cup of flour. Beat with the dough hook for 8minutes adding a TBSP of flour at a time if needed to get the dough to completely pull away from the sides of the bowl. Once the dough is in a ball, remove from the mixer and separate into balls and add your food coloring. To mix in your colors, add a few drops of food coloring to your dough and knead and fold the dough for 2-3 minutes until the coloring is well incorporated. Once all the colors are mixed, cover the dough on the counter and let rise for 1 hour. Divide risen dough into smaller sections and press together to form one large pieces of dough. Roll out into a large rectangle and spread on butter and cinnamon and sugar mixture. Roll up and cut with a pieces of string. Place into a buttered baking dish, cover, and let set another 30min. Bake at 375 degrees until just golden on top. About 35-45min. Spread icing on top when warm and enjoy!

Recipe by @kailochic

Easter Basket Stuffer List for 2 Year Olds 2022

I’m so excited for all of the Easter inspiration coming out right now so I couldn’t wait to share my Easter Basket Stuffer wish list for 2022. This basket features some of my all time favorite shops and makers and I’m super excited to be supporting these small shops.

• TouchThinkLearn Farm Animals

• TouchThinkLearn Baby Animals

• Little Sleepies Easter Bunnies Jammies

• Elisa’s Little Blossoms Piggie Bows

• Stacking Cups

• Pastel Fidget Tubes

• Chalk Eggs

• Bamboo Toothbrush

• Ten Littles Rain Boots

• Farm Animals Memory Game Card

• Farm Animals Flashcards

• Cat & Jack Coral Sandals

• Coral Cloud Fidget Popper

• Speckled Foam Eggs Sensory Filler

• Carrot Tag for Easter Baskets

Rainbow Spaghetti

Everyone who knows me knows that I love spaghetti! And really just all things pasta in general. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Sofie loves this activity! But man I wasn’t expecting this to be such a big hit. Not only did the colors come out so bright and beautiful, but seeing them all mixed together in a box spaghetti mess was so much fun. Plus it worked out as a great post nap snack.

Heres how to do it:

• Cook spaghetti or any other noodles as you normally would (boil for 12minutes)

• Drain the noodles in a colander and rinse with cool water (I picked them up with my hands to make sure they rinsed well so that they would be slippery and not sticky)

• Fill 6 plastic ziploc bags with 2-3 tablespoons of water. I used and entire box of spaghetti divided into 6 bags / 6 colors so I used 2 tablespoons of water

• Add 3 drops of pastel food coloring into the bags and let it fully saturate the water. I recommend the pastel colors because they come out so bright and vibrant!

• grab a handful of noodles and drop them in the bag. Mix them up until the noodles are coated with the dyed water.

• Place the bags in the refrigerator overnight. Depending on how well you mixed them, you might get an ombré effect if the bottom noodles are sitting in more saturated water. For the most part the noodles with absorb all of the water but if you want to avoid the ombré look, drain any excess water before you put them in the fridge.

• Take the bags out the next day and place them in this awesome compartment serving tray. This one is perfect because it comes with a lid so you can seal it up and save it to play again later. We used it two times in one day and then tossed the leftover spaghetti.

• Set up your sensory play table with this Melissa & Doug pots and pans set and color flashcards from GoodnightFox. We practiced mixing and color matching and it was so much fun!

  Head over to Instagram.com/GoodnightFox to check out some adorable videos of this activity in action.

Pirate Play Time

It’s Pirate month over at My PreK Box and I’m so excited to share this amazing play kit. This box came with so many goodies, we still haven’t played with every activity yet. And Sofie keeps asking “Are we going to play with my Pirate activity?” Let me share a little more about what comes in this awesome box!

In the Box:

• Foam Pirate Ship: Sofie loved building this one and playing with the stick for the sail. It took us a little while to figure out how to put it together properly since neither of us tend to read instructions, but once we got it set up, Sofie had so much fun sailing it around the room. She even took it to the bath with her to float in the water and use it for her lego friends to set sail!

• Pirate Hat: Sofie thought the Pirate Hat was just hilarious and she enjoyed adding all of the stickers and putting it on me! She made such a cute little pirate don’t you think?

• Treasure Chest: There’s an awesome card matching treasure chest game which helps kiddos learn counting by the absence of the gems in each box. I’m working so hard with Sofie on counting right now so this was the perfect way to make it more visual for her.

• Kinetic Sand: This sand jar was definitely a big hit! Sofie loved finding the gems hidden inside and the sand is so fun to play with.

• Cannon Balls: Sofie loved playing with the little blue tiles and counting them one by one.

• Treasure Map: This kit comes with a blank treasure map and and entire page of stickers. OMG it was a total hit. Sofie loves stickers but this was even more fun because we got to create the map and identify all of the new words and objects as we went.

Head over to my instagram for more images and videos of this amazing play kit in action! And don’t forget to check out @myprekbox for these awesome monthly subscription kits — you can learn more about the owner Lindsey and her family here. She also has a ton of amazing free printables on her blog and you can learn more about subscription options here.

Farmers Market Play: Sensory Play Setup for Preschoolers

A farmers market themed sensory play setup is a delightful way to introduce preschoolers to the world of fresh produce, healthy eating, and local farming. Sensory play offers numerous benefits for young children, enhancing their cognitive, emotional, and physical development. In this post, we’ll explore the advantages of sensory play and provide detailed instructions for creating three farmers market themed sensory bins: a dried pasta filler bin, a fruits bin using colorful silicone fruits, and a vegetables bin using silicone veggies. These activities incorporate relevant learning topics and offer a fun, interactive experience for preschoolers.

Benefits of Sensory Play for Preschoolers

Sensory play is crucial for preschoolers as it:

• Enhances cognitive development: Interacting with different textures and materials helps children understand their environment and enhances problem-solving skills.

• Improves fine motor skills: Handling small objects and manipulating materials improves hand-eye coordination and dexterity.

• Encourages language development: Describing sensory experiences helps expand vocabulary and communication skills.

• Supports emotional regulation: Sensory play can be calming and helps children manage emotions and stress.

• Promotes social interaction: Playing in sensory bins with peers or family members fosters cooperation, sharing, and social bonding.

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3 Farmers Market Themed Sensory Bins for Preschoolers

1. Dried Pasta Filler Bin

Materials Needed:

• Egg noodles (taste safe)

• Small scoops and cups

• Mini burlap sacks or cloth bags

• Toy scales

• Small baskets

Instructions:

1. Setup:

• Fill a large bin with egg noodles to mimic grains.

• Provide small scoops, cups, mini burlap sacks, and cloth bags for scooping and pouring.

• Include toy scales and small baskets for added play.

2. Interactive Play:

• Encourage children to scoop and pour the noodles, pretending they are grains.

• Use the scales to weigh the grains and fill the sacks and baskets.

Learning Topics:

• Discuss different types of grains and their uses.

• Introduce basic concepts of measurement and weight.

• Talk about the importance of grains in a healthy diet.

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2. Fruits Bin Using Silicone Colorful Fruits

Materials Needed:

• Silicone colorful fruits from @Nuggbutts

• Small baskets and crates

• Toy cash register

• Play money

• Small reusable shopping bags

Instructions:

1. Setup:

• Fill a large bin with the silicone colorful fruits from @Nuggbutts

• Provide small baskets and crates for sorting and displaying the fruits.

• Include a toy cash register, play money, and small reusable shopping bags.

2. Interactive Play:

• Encourage children to sort and organize the fruits in the baskets and crates.

• Use the toy cash register and play money for pretend shopping.

• Allow children to fill the reusable shopping bags with their chosen fruits.

Learning Topics:

• Discuss different types of fruits and their nutritional benefits.

• Introduce concepts of sorting and categorizing.

• Talk about the process of shopping and exchanging money.

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3. Vegetables Bin Using Silicone Veggies

Materials Needed:

• Silicone veggies from @Nuggbutts

• Small gardening tools (toy spades, rakes)

• Mini pots and trays

• Small watering cans

• Toy market stand (optional)

Instructions:

1. Setup:

• Fill a large bin with the silicone veggies from @Nuggbutts.

• Provide small gardening tools, mini pots, and trays for planting and organizing the veggies.

• Include small watering cans for pretend watering.

• Set up a toy market stand if available.

2. Interactive Play:

• Encourage children to use the gardening tools to plant and organize the veggies in the pots and trays.

• Use the watering cans for pretend watering of the plants.

• Allow children to set up a market stand and "sell" their veggies.

Learning Topics:

• Discuss different types of vegetables and their health benefits.

• Introduce concepts of planting and gardening.

• Talk about the farm-to-table process and the importance of fresh produce.

A farmers market themed sensory play setup is a perfect way to engage preschoolers in a fun and educational activity. These themed sensory bins not only provide endless entertainment but also promote important developmental skills. By creating these sensory bins, you can introduce young children to the fundamentals of healthy eating, farming, and local markets. These hands-on experiences will help foster a love of fresh produce and create lasting memories.

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25 Farmer’s Market Vocabulary Words for Preschoolers

1. 1. Farmers Market

2. 2. Grains

3. 3. Egg Noodles

4. 4. Scooping

5. 5. Pouring

6. 6. Weighing

7. 7. Fruits

8. 8. Vegetables

9. 9. Sorting

10. 10. Categorizing

11. 11. Shopping

12. 12. Cash Register

13. 13. Play Money

14. 14. Baskets

15. 15. Crates

16. 16. Gardening

17. 17. Planting

18. 18. Watering

19. 19. Market Stand

20. 20. Nutritional Benefits

21. 21. Farm-to-Table

22. 22. Fresh Produce

23. 23. Healthy Eating

24. 24. Local Farming

25. 25. Preschool Activities

Engage your preschoolers in these exciting farmers market play activities and watch them learn and grow while having fun! Also featured in this playroom setup are of course the fabulous IKEA Flisat Table including the IKEA Skadis Peg Board Attachment, IKEA Felt Food, and the awesome little Wooden Cash Register.