Chicken Food Sensory Bin ~ Sensory Activity for Toddlers

Who knew Chicken Food would make a great sensory activity for toddlers and preschoolers to explore with their sense or touch, sound and engineering skills.

What do you get when you combine a roll of tape, a few cardboard tubes, recycled tins, a water table and a bag of chicken feed?  A couple of happy kids and a morning spent engineering, constructing, dumping and pouring.  Love that!

I generally try not to use food as a play material, especially when there are other alternatives available.  We are playing with the seed mix we feed our chickens.  It is a simple alternative to rice, and something we always have on hand.  Our chickens don’t mind eating the seed even after we’ve played with it, so nothing is wasted.  Love that!

I missed taking photos of the kids engineering the cardboard tubes.  It was so fun to watch them in action.  It was a lot of trial and error, but with a little perseverance the kids did a wonderful job.  Tape played a big roll in keeping their whole contraption together.

The kiddos spent the morning filling the tin cans with the chicken food…dumping it down the tubes and repeating it…over and over.

 The loved the sound the chicken food made as is flowed threw the cardboard tubes.  It sounded very similar to a rain stick.

The kids spent a good chunk of the morning simply pouring, mixing, sorting and running their hands through the chicken feed.  Seriously, who knew a bag of chicken feed could be so much fun?

The kids eventually expanded their play/learning to 2 levels.  Love it!

Playing outside made cleanup a breeze.  The kids diligently scooped the chicken food back in the storage bin and then chickens came in a cleaned up the rest.  Easy peasy!

We LOVE simple sensory activities like this.  A few of our favorites include paper pulp, shaving cream, indoor snow play,  and shredded paper!  What is your kiddos favorite sensory material?