Sensory bags are the perfect way to introduce babies to sensory play and keep them entertained during tummy time!
When I started this blog, my youngest was only 3 months old. She spent most of her time sleeping, eating, and swinging, so I didn’t feel the need to involve her in our activities.
Now she’s 7 months old and more curious about big sis’s activities, particularly our sensory play activities.
I get that you need to keep your kids busy because you feel stressed about all the stuff you need to get done today. That’s why my mission is to…
1. Find fun, quality kids’ activities and show you step by step how to do them.
2. Save you time and energy by using supplies from around the house or show you where to easily get them.
3. Inspire you to be creative and play with your kids in new and exciting ways.
Babies (and a lot of toddlers!) put EVERYTHING in their mouths, so how do you keep them safe while still engaging them in sensory play?
The answer is a sensory bag!
We know two things:1. The hardest part of keeping your kids entertained at home is starting a new routine and keeping with it. 2. It's super difficult to come up with a new routine when life is chaotic, and you don't know where to start.The Activity Playground is meant to take you past those two obstacles.
GET STARTED!
WHAT’S A SENSORY BAG?
Sensory bags (sometimes called squish bags) are bags filled with items that engage children’s senses, mostly the senses of touch and sight, and occasionally smell and sound.
You might prefer a sensory bag over a sensory bin if you’ve got little ones who mouth everything, want to keep messes completely contained, or have kids who don’t like getting messy.
Sensory bags are also super portable!
I love using sensory bags with my babies. My oldest hated tummy time as a baby. We had a bag of green water that we used to entice her to play on her tummy.
Now that she’s older, we’ve moved on to sensory bins. Here are a few of the bins we’ve made so far.
- Popcorn sensory bin
- Jingle bells sensory bin
- Cookie dough sensory bin
- Color sorting sensory bin
Sensory bins are basically the same as bags, except the filler is in a bin and will also contain interesting objects, like pinecones, and have materials to manipulate the filler, such as shovels and measuring cups and funnels.
Why Do Kids need Sensory Play?
Babies and toddlers benefit from sensory play activities through:
- developing language skills,
- learning to freely explore and investigate their world,
- learning sensory attributes (i.e. hot, cold, wet, dry, soft, hard),
- developing motor skills,
- developing the skill of focus.
Sensory stimulation has been proven to calm those who are anxious and help them sleep better. This is great news for us parents!
I try to do at least one sensory play activity with my toddler every day, and now I’m trying to get the baby involved too!
17 Quick & Easy Sensory Bag FIllers
Sensory bags can be filled with whatever interesting things you don’t want your kids putting into their mouths.
I like to use a variety of squishy and hard fillers when choosing bags to tape to the floor.
Some of our favorite fillers are:
- Shaving cream
- Dry pasta
- Pom poms
- Popcorn
- Dyed rice
- Salt
- Drinking straws
- Beads
- Clear hair gel or shampoo
- Water beads
- Buttons
- Leaves
- Glitter and baby oil
- Cereal
- Chips
- Crumpled paper balls
- Oil and water (see instructions below)
Put no more than 3 cups of any of these fillers in your zip-top bag.
Side note: Most of these sensory bag fillers were previously used in our sensory bins!
How to Make an Oil & Water Sensory Bag
Making a colorful, mesmerizing oil & water sensory bag like the one below is easy peasy. I love the lava lamp effect and it really piqued the curiosity of my two-year-old, Ella.
Here’s how I did it. I put a gallon zip-top plastic bag in a large bowl and poured 2 cups of oil in.
I used canola oil, but you could also use vegetable oil or baby oil;. it really doesn’t matter.
Next, I stirred several drops of red food coloring (Ella’s favorite color) into a half cup of water.
That went into the bag with the oil.
Then I zipped up the top and taped it shut with duct tape.
If you’re going to let the little ones freely explore the oil and water bag, or any bag with wet ingredients, during sensory play time, I suggest double-bagging and making sure their nails are nice and trim!
We’ve had a couple instances where our bags have leaked from someone’s pointy nail poking a hole in the bag 🙁
How We Played with Sensory Bags
I chose four sensory bag fillers: shaving cream, dry penne, oil and water, and pom poms. These four were a nice mix of different textures: squishy, hard, soft, and wet.
Then I taped the bags to the floor in a grid using duct tape. I was hesitant to use duct tape at first, but it didn’t hurt my wood floors.
We only had them taped on for a day before I removed them. I wouldn’t recommend using duct tape on the floor for longer than that.
The girls played very nicely together!
It was great to have bags large enough for the girls to play with together. Taping the bags down also kept the bags in one spot so the older one couldn’t “steal” one away from the little one.
Baby was very interested in the colorful pom poms and kept trying to pick them up. She also really liked the shaving cream. I had put little googly eyes in there, but they didn’t show up quite as well as I hoped. Clear gel would’ve been better.
Ella also liked trying to find the googly eyes. She also discovered you can make lines in the shaving cream through the bag.
And she had to try walking all over the bags!
The pasta did not get much attention this time around.
Chips, though, are another story…
Your Turn to make sensory bags
1. Choose four different fillers:
Wet
- Shaving cream
- Oil and water (go back to instructions here)
- Clear hair gel or shampoo
- Water beads
Dry
- Buttons
- Leaves
- Glitter and baby oil
- Cereal
- Chips (just be prepared for these to be crushed beyond edibility)
- Crumpled paper balls
- Dry pasta
- Pom poms
- Popcorn
- Dyed rice (use your sensory bin fillers!)
- Salt
- Drinking straws
- Beads
2. Place no more than 3 cups of filler in a gallon-sized zip-top bag.
If using a liquid, double bag and tape the bags securely shut for extra security.
3. Tape the bags in a grid on the floor.
Or, if you have a big window, try taping the sensory bags there!
I hope these sensory bags keep your baby or toddler entertained today!
Comment below with your favorite filler. If you have a new one, I’d love to try it out and add it to my list!
Check out these other sensory play activities!
Building Your Own I-Spy Jar
Sensory Snow Trucks
It was back when our youngest turned one, when we realized we needed to do something differently. Like every toddler with newly found mobility, she was curious and constantly getting into things we didn't want her to.Whining. Tantrums. You name it. We were frustrated. She was bored. We knew her developmental skills were rapidly changing, but how do you even go about keeping a toddler entertained?! Back then, we had no idea what kinds of things she would enjoy, and we were tired of playing with the same toys over and over again. That's when we started doing planned activities with our toddler. It was like a switch flipped. Days went smoother. There were far fewer tantrums. There were many more giggles!There was a new sense of excitement waking up each day. What were we going to do next?! When you think about spending time with your toddler, we want you to have that bubbly, excited feeling in your belly, not a feeling of dread. And we want to make it easier for parents to do just that.That's why we created the FREE 5-Day activity challenge.
- Break out of your current routine.
- Get the most impact out of your time together.
- Stop feeling guilty about using electronics to entertain your kids, because you won't need them anymore!
- Start the path to becoming the parent you've been wanting to be!
- Did we mention it's 100% FREE?!
JOIN THE FREE 5-DAY ACTIVITY CHALLENGE!
