Our Favorite Sensory Tools

Sensory play provides opportunities for children to use their senses to explore, discover, and learn about their environment and build cognitive skills. It also helps children process sensory input, encourages communication, supports the development of social skills, and develops fine motor muscles. And best of all, it is just downright FUN! We’ve rounded up some of our very favorite sensory items that we use in our homes and classrooms for you to peruse below and add to your own sensory play set-up for your children.

Our Favorite Sensory Bin Tools

Here are a few of our favorite sensory tools that we find our students using again and again in our preschool classrooms! Most of these work with a wide variety of sensory bin fillers (sand, water, ooblek, you name it!) and are great tools for developing fine motor or literacy skills!

The Preschool Place is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Gator Tweezers

Our students love these tweezers! They’re not too hard for little hands to squeeze, and they’re perfect for grabbing and pinching different sensory bin items.

Handy Scoopers

These scoopers are so great to help kids learn how to hold and use scissors, without them even realizing! These are especially fun to use with rainbow rice or instant snow.

Squeezy Tweezers

My students are obsessed with these! They’re perfect for picking up little animals or mini erasers scattered in the sensory bin.

Mini Hand Tongs

Another great fine motor-strengthening tool that is easy to toss in the sensory bin, and is used in so many creative ways. We love these little tongs!

Silicone Muffin Liners

I never would have expected these muffin liners to be such a big hit, but they are one of the most requested items for sensory play in our classroom! Kids love to fill them up, dump them out, sort by color, and pretend they are baking a masterpiece!

Mini Acrylic Scoops

Kids love to pour and measure with these scoops, and they so versatile! They work with any sensory base.

Letter Blocks

These letter blocks are a fun and simple way to add some literacy into any sensory bin! We love these! They’re especially fun to use with kinetic sand or play dough.

Mini Construction Vehicles

Our students love to add construction vehicles to any sensory bin….and I mean ANY of them! They love to fill them up and dump them out and use them to push things around. Such great fine motor muscle work!