Colored Hay Sensory Bin

I’m super excited to be participating in the 40 Days of Sensory Bin Fillers series from Sarah of Little Bins for Little Hands. There’s been so many fun fillers shared already. We’re contributing hay, otherwise known as natural wood excelsior. Our colored hay sensory bin is full of bright, fun sensory play materials.

My favorite part about hay is its ability to be easily manipulated and colored. Yesterday we shared how to dye hay and today we’ll sculpt, roll, and stretch it in our easy to set-up sensory bin. Be sure to link-up your hay or spring sensory bins below too.

Materials:

Hay (Natural Wood Excelsior)
Coloring Hay Recipe
Colored Popsicle Sticks
Colored Pipe Cleaners
Bin
Glue (optional)

Once you’ve colored it, it’s time to play. Simply add colored popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, and or anything fun from your craft bins. With a few pipe cleaners, we’re going to sculpt the hay into beautiful butterflies and caterpillars for an easy spring craft.

We rolled the colored hay into balls to make a cute caterpillar. We twisted the pipe cleaners together for a colorful effect.

There are lots of options for play:

make fun animals and insects for spring
create flowers with popsicle stick stems
design abstract art
roll hay into Easter eggs
add shapes or letters

No matter how you choose to play, it’s a sensational sensory experience.

It pulls, stretches, and creates a neat textured effect.

This was my favorite part—sculpting. We created huge towers that intertwined all four colors. Super fun spring sensory art, right?!

Along with sensory play, we made a cute caterpillar inching on a vine. Roll the colored hay into balls—wonderful tactile sensory experience—then add pipe cleaner antennas. You can glue the balls, intertwine the hay, or make them interchangeable. Super easy caterpillar craft for kids, right?

Our caterpillar needed a friend, so we made a colored hay butterfly too. This is such a great sensory play activity and a fun spring art crafts for kids.

Colored hay is such a fun sensory play material. Plus, it’s inexpensive, reusable, and a non-food play material. It was so much fun dyeing it too. I can’t wait to explore more spring crafts with our colored hay. Looking for more sensory bin play?

Here’s a few of our favorite spring sensory activities:

Raspberry Foam Dough Bunnies

Spring Insect Sensory Painting