The holiday season is the best time of year in our home!
Because both my boys have fall birthdays we start celebrating the “holidays” in September, but for most people, Halloween is the beginning of the true holiday season.
Since we try to soak up every last second of this time of year, we love doing different Halloween activities and crafts.
And this Halloween sensory bin made from eyeball bouncy balls and colored spaghetti was a smashing hit at our house.
If your kids love Halloween and slimy, squishy fun, they’ll love this activity too!
Read on below or check out the video to see all the fun in action.
Halloween Sensory Bin For Kids
Halloween Sensory Box Supplies
- Spaghetti
- Neon Food Dye
- Eyeball Bouncy Balls
- Activity Tray
- Scooper Scissors
- Child Scissors
- White Vinegar (4 tablespoons)
- Gallon Ziploc Bag
- Small Mixing Bowl
- Cups or Bowls (for sorting)
Colored Spaghetti & Eyeball Sensory Bin Directions
1. Cook the spaghetti according to the package. We used one 1lb box and had enough to fill two of our activity trays.
2. Drain spaghetti and rinse with cool water.
3. In a small bowl, mix approximately 4 tablespoons white vinegar with about half the bottle of neon purple food dye. Add the mixture and the spaghetti to a gallon Ziploc bag and seal tightly.
4. Mix the spaghetti and dye around in the bag until it’s completely saturated. Let sit for 1-2 hours to get completely absorbed.
5. Rinse the spaghetti in cold water, then place it in the activity tray with the eyeball bouncy balls.
6. Set out two small bowls (for sorting the eyeballs into colors), the scooper scissors, child scissors, and any other tools for your child to explore their Halloween sensory bin.
This sensory bin is so much fun for kids.
I mean, even I wanted to play with the spaghetti a little too!
You can simply let your children have fun and explore on their own or you can throw in a little educational spin by asking them to sort the eyeballs by color into each of the small bowls.
To work on numbers, you can have them count the total number of eyeballs.
Also, if they’re old enough to be working on addition you can have them add the green eyeballs and the blue eyeballs together to get the total number of eyeballs.
My 4-year-old loved working on fine motor skills by using the scooper scissors and also by using the regular scissors to cut the spaghetti up into little pieces.
And if you have these eyeball bouncy balls, this sensory bin glows in the dark too!!!
Any way you play with this Halloween sensory bin is bound to be loads of fun!
If your young children love this activity, they’ll get a kick out of these fun preschool board games too.
Halloween Unit For Kids
Don’t let the fun Halloween activities stop here! Create an entire unit study for kids around this sensory activity. Read on below for our favorite ideas.
Reading out loud to children is great because it helps kids love reading, learn communication skills, improve critical thinking skills, and more! Because of this, we always recommend starting a new unit with books.
Below are some of the top-rated Halloween books for kids. Add them to your home collection or borrow them from your local library.
Room On The Broom: This has to be one of our most favorite Halloween books of all time! The story follows a witch and her cat as they happen upon some animals who help the witch. There’s danger, mystery, and friendship in this adorable children’s story.
5 Minute Spooky Stories: We love Disney’s 5 minute storybooks and this one is perfect for Halloween! See how all your favorite Disney characters celebrate this spooky holiday.
Ten Timid Ghosts: This is a fun countdown book about a witch who moves into a haunted house where 10 ghosts already live. The witch scares the ghosts out one by one until they devise a scheme to get her out of their house. This Halloween children’s book is good for kids who love rhyming stories!
Of course, we do lots of crafts as well! Check out some of our most popular Halloween crafts:
- Candy Corn Halloween Craft
- Handprint Bat Craft
- Mickey Mouse Pumpkin Craft
- Paper Plate Frankenstein Craft
These Halloween pattern block mats are perfect for kids of all ages and they can be used as a learning tool too! Have them count how many blocks there are, match up shapes, and more. Plus it’s super easy because all you have to do is print out the PDF file at home and grab your pattern blocks.
Kids can color these cute Halloween coloring pages. These are no-prep, fun, and printable! This is a great activity for those rainy days when you need something new to do inside or on those chilly nights where it’s too cold outside.
Get your kids in the spooky spirit with these Halloween do a dot printables! These are great for working on counting and letter recognition, plus they’re fun to use.
Nikki
Tuesday 8th of September 2020
How far in advance can you make this for the right playing consistency? Are we talking hours or can I do the day before? How do you best store it? Fridge?
Sam T
Thursday 10th of September 2020
We made it and then immediately played with it, but we kept and used it for about a week. As long as your kids don't mind that it's cold (we kept it refrigerated when it wasn't being played with). Hope this helps :)