Spring is such an exciting time in the preschool classroom, which so many opportunities to explore science and nature topics like butterflies. I made this butterfly matching sensory tray to go along with our gardening theme from Experience Preschool. It allows children to scoop, pour, “plant flowers’, create a garden, and match butterflies.
Find more gardening activities for preschoolers on my Gardening Pinterest board.
Butterfly Matching Sensory Tray
Butterfly Matching Sensory Tray for a spring preschool gardening theme. Children can scoop and pour, design a garden and match butterflies. Our butterfly matching sensory tray includes:
- Learning Resources Grow It! Gardening Set
- Small butterflies for matching
- Colored Bowtie Pasta
- Colored garbanzo beans (colored with liquid watercolors)
- Silk flowers
- Wood mushrooms
- A Butterfly is Patient book
- Green split peas
- Tweezers for kids
- Dishes for matching
- Tray
The book A Butterfly is Patient is a beautiful book that pairs perfectly with this sensory bin. It has wonderful information about different kinds of butterflies and is beautifully illustrated. My kids like to look through the book for their favorites.
The colorful tray with lots of interesting items draws a child’s interest and encourages them to explore how the materials look and feel. These hands-on sensory experiences are calming and promote well-rounded learning experiences about our theme.
Most of my sensory bins work well for small groups but sometimes we like to have time for individual play.
Our butterfly matching tray is a bit of a “hide and seek” type activity. First, the child chooses a butterfly to put in a dish and then searches for the matching color or patterned butterfly.
Below you can see the child looking for a match to the orange butterfly. Using the tweezers, she’s also developing fine motor skills.
Here’s what it looked like through mid-play. It’s not all perfection here, kids are allowed to play!
I hope my sensory tray will be an inspiration for your next preschool sensory bin!
