10 SPRING SENSORY ACTIVITIES FOR TODDLERS
As the world awakens from its winter slumber, spring brings us back to life with its vibrant, fun spring colors, gentle breezes, and the sweet fragrance of blooming flowers. For toddlers, this season offers plenty of great opportunities to explore the wonders of nature through sensory play. But, what is sensory play and why is it important?
Sensory activities help to engage one or more of the senses sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell to foster a child’s curiosity, creativity, intellect, and development. It goes so far beyond entertainment because these activities play a fundamental role in fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, speech and language development, social and emotional skills, and much more.
By encouraging toddlers to interact with the environment using all their senses, we pave the way for their cognitive, physical, and emotional growth. Spring is an amazing time to explore the senses using natural elements and play-based learning. There are so many new things happening in nature and, for many, the weather change finally allows for outdoor play again.
So, today, I am sharing a round-up of spring sensory play ideas that toddlers can enjoy in the springtime. The majority of the amazing spring activities you will find below are directly from my Mothercould In Your Pocket Resource! When you sign up, you gain access to these activities and so much MORE! All for a one time fee of ONLY $44! All of these are printable, easy to understand, and designed with your little ones in mind.
10 Spring Sensory Activities for Toddlers
Bee Sensory Bin
With spring comes flowers, and with flowers, comes the buzzing of bees! What better way to celebrate this lovely time of year than with themed sensory bins? Your little honey bee will LOVE this activity full of opportunities to explore! There are so many sensory bin benefits, and your little one can enjoy them all with this activity!
Materials
Yellow rice or yellow beads (here’s my DIY method for dying rice here)
Dried black beans or black beads
Instructions
Fill a large container/sensory bin with your yellow rice or yellow beads. Flatten it out.
Place the dried black beans or black beads in lines across the yellow rice, just like the pattern of a bumblebee.
Decorate with toy flowers, toy bees, and any other spring items you like.
Let your toddler enjoy scooping, pouring, sorting, and more!
Frog Pond Sensory Bin
If your kids love frogs and new sensory bin ideas, they will love this spring-themed sensory bin. With this spring sensory bin, your little ones can enjoy a range of textures and shapes, all inspired by an amphibian's natural habitat! You can even go a step further by grabbing a book about the frog life cycle and make it a teaching opportunity.
Materials
Sensory bin
Sticks (ask your little ones for help gathering sticks)
Water
Instructions
Add your sticks and rocks to your sensory bin.
Once you’ve created the habitat, add in a small amount of water to create the pond.
Place lily pads on top of the water, and put the frogs on the lily pads, rocks, and in the water.
Let your little one enjoy learning about frogs and use it as a learning activity by letting them ask questions.
Water Blooming Flowers
Blooming flowers is one of my absolute favorite sensory activities! This flower sensory activity is super easy, super fun, and super cheap. You barely need to prepare for this activity because you likely have all the things already in your pantry!
Materials
Water
Dropper or spray bottle
Instructions
Use a permanent marker to draw the stem and center of the flower on a paper towel. Make sure to protect your surface underneath the paper towel as the permanent marker will pass through the paper towel.
Using the washable markers, make small circles around the center of the flower.
Ask your child to water the flowers using the dropper or spray bottle. Watch your toddler’s excitement as they watch the flowers grow!
Mothercould Spring Activity Pack
If it’s looking a little gloomy outside, the Mothercould Spring Activity Pack featured in the Mothercould In Your Pocket Resource is exactly what you need to keep your kids happy! This pack is full of engaging and beneficial sensory activities to inspire the spirit of spring and keep your toddler plenty busy. This is just one of the many simple, must-try activities in my resource!
Materials
Mothercould In Your Pocket Resource - Spring Activity Pack
Playdough (here’s my homemade playdough recipe)
Instructions
Purchase the Mothercould In Your Pocket Resource.
Navigate to the Spring Activity Pack.
Read the instructions to complete each activity.
Spring Sensory Bottle
Sensory bottles are not only fun to make, but they’re actually great calm-down tools to handle toddler tantrums and meltdowns! Kids of any age love this activity, because it’s really easy to create an effective final product. I also love that once you make these, they last a long time. This isn’t a throwaway activity in the slightest!
Materials
Recycled plastic bottles
Hot water
Instructions
Fill the plastic bottle 1/3 of the way with glue.
Add a few drops of food coloring, some butterfly sequins, and some glitter. Then, fill up the bottle the rest of the way with and hot water.
Close the bottle and shake well.
If you want, you can add more color or glitter at this point! Once the effect is exactly to your child’s liking, use the hot glue gun to glue the cap on. This is a really important step to avoid leaks or accidents.
Tip: If you want to skip a few ingredients, you could also just use color glitter glue instead of combining the clear glue, food coloring, and glitter.
Cotton Ball Flowers Activity
This cotton ball flowers sensory activity is the PERFECT way to welcome spring! It’s a perfect project for toddlers, because it produces a final product that they can identify and be proud of while still having plenty of creative freedom! Plus, I like how you can make this project as big or small as you want. Make a single flower or assemble an entire garden of spring cotton ball blooms. It’s up to you! (and how much time you want to kill.)
Materials
Instructions
Add a bit of glue to the paper.
On the paper with glue, make a flower shape with the cotton balls. I use 1 for the center and 6 for the petals.
Mix water with a few drops of food coloring.
Using the dropper, have your kids color in the flower.
Once done, help your toddler use the marker to draw stems.
Display their beautiful work of art!
Spring Sensory Bag
Who doesn’t love a fun sensory bag activity? I know I my kids do! This spring sensory bag activity will inspire your toddler to explore, be creative, and identify shapes and colors all while promoting their developmental health!
Note: This activity does include water beads. However, they’re sealed inside a bag. Just remember water beads can be hazardous if swallowed.
Materials
Instructions
Fill the bag with the water beads and plastic flowers.
Pour water into the bag until it’s half full.
Remove all the air before closing.
Let your child squish and explore mess-free!
Tip: To remove the air from inside the bag, dip the bag in a tub of water, leaving the seam out. The pressure will push all the air out! (Cool, right?) Zip the bag shut once the air is gone.
Colorful Rice Bug Search and Find Activity
This colorful search and find activity with rice is a great way to develop fine motor skills. Previously, I’ve used it to find letters and shapes with my little ones, but let’s transform it into something spring-themed!
Materials
Sensory bin
Instructions
Fill the bin with colored rice.
Hide the bugs and insects in the rice.
Ask your child/children to fish for the bugs and insects. You could even have a little bug bungalow to put their found insects in!
Salt Painted Flowers
Salt painted flowers are a great, taste-safe activity perfect for almost any age! Whether your kid is 3 or 13, they’ll have a blast creating salt painted flowers. You can probably assemble this whole activity using things in your pantry, too, which is a huge plus!
Materials
Instructions
Using a permanent marker, draw a few flowers on the watercolor paper.
Outline the flowers using the glue.
Add salt on top, for better results add a lot of salt.
Use the syringe to drop a little bit of colored water at a time onto the salt to paint the drawing.
Let dry
Tip: Although this is a taste safe activity for toddlers, make sure you keep an eye on the younger ones. You don’t want them ingesting a bunch of salt and food coloring.
Color Changing Trees
This color changing trees activity is great for teaching kids about the changing seasons and celebrating spring! You create a small toy they can reuse again and again for imaginative play and continued learning! Better yet, it is super very simple and cheap.
Materials
Permanent markers (brown and gray/black)
Markers: green, red, orange, yellow, brown/gray
Instructions
On one of the cups, help your toddler draw a tree trunk silhouette using the brown permanent marker.
On top of the tree trunk, assist your child in drawing a silhouette of a tree top using the gray/black marker.
Using the x-acto knife, carefully cut out the tree top. (Your toddler can sit this one out.)
On the second cup, use the markers to draw blocks of color for each season.
Then, let your toddler color in the appropriate colors, gradually going from green to yellow, to orange, to red and brown. Make sure to leave room for a slot with no color after the brown for winter!
Insert the colored cup into the tree silhouette and turn slowly to see the leaves turn color.
Welcome spring with these DIY sensory activities!
All of these spring sensory activities are ideal for all kids, including toddlers and preschoolers! We hope that you have fun welcoming spring your way with the activities above.
For more sensory play ideas, how to create your own DIY sensory table, and so much more, make sure you take a look at the Mothercould blog! I love sharing tips, tricks, and more to help your little ones meet development milestones while still having fun!