Sensory bins are a great way to work on a variety of skills while keeping students engaged. Making sensory bins is like tie dying, you can’t really mess it up. Some of the best sensory bins are made from things you find around your house, or reuse from previous projects. Keep reading for some ideas on how I use sensory bins in my speech and language therapy sessions.

Targeting Vocabulary:
One of the easiest ways to use a sensory bin is to talk about the things you put inside! Talk with your students about the objects you put in your activity. My Valentine’s Day themed activity targets emotions.

Asking and Answering Questions:
Ask your students “wh” questions about what they found or have students practice asking each other questions about their items. Through my themed box we are asking students about a time they have felt a particular emotion they have found.

Describing:
This goal targets students’ vocabulary as well and can easily be used to help expand sentence length. Talk about the shape, size, color, or other descriptors when pulling items from your sensory bin. You can even use a sentence strip to help formulate sentences and expand utterances.

Fine Motor:
Sensory bins are a wonderful way to also target fine motor skills while working on speech and language. Students can use their fingers or various sizes or “grabbers” to work on their fine motor skills. I’m sure your occupational therapist friends will that you for the extra practice!

Speech Sounds:
It can go without saying, although I will, that your students can always practice their speech sounds at conversational level. For extra practice load your sensory bins with articulation cards targeting specific speech sounds for your students to find.

I hope you found this helpful! The resources you see in this blog post can be found in the Ginger Speechie Teachers Pay Teachers store, or linked on the Amazon Must Have List.