Nuts and Bolts Sensory Bin - Best Toys 4 Toddlers

Nuts and Bolts are two items I had never considered using within a Sensory Bin. I have recently realised their great play potential for developing fine motor skills. As my little one no longer puts items in their mouth, I wanted to see what activities we could create with these items in our N is for Nuts and Bolts Sensory Bin.

Setting up this activity couldn’t have been quicker or simpler. I emptied our container of nuts, bolts and washers we have collected over the years during various DIY projects into our green sensory bin. That was it. In two seconds flat we had set up our sensory bin.

My son spent ages exploring each of the different items. He was amazed by the tiny nuts and that his fingers could fit through the washers.

We discovered that a nut placed on top of a washer looks like a hat. We then set about the task of seeing how many hats we could create – 25 in total!

I demonstrated how the nuts could be placed onto the bolt and that they would be twisted. My son was in his element. He practised the fine motor skills for such a long time until he could get as many nuts onto the bolts as possible.

It was surprising that at first glace I had thought all the nuts were all the same. However, my son discovered that the nuts were all in fact different sizes. We obviously then had to sort them into different groups.

Once the nuts were in separate bowls we then had to sort the bolts into size order too. What a great sorting activity that required lots of comparison, concentration and memory.

When the nuts and bolts had been sorted, it made it quicker to find what nut fitted correctly onto which bolt.