One of my favorite activities to do with my preschool special education students is mini sensory bins!  I use mini sensory bins for lots of different skills including reinforcing vocabulary words, colors, shapes, letters, numbers, simple matching objects to pictures and pictures to pictures.  The kids love engaging with the sensory materials and also playing a game by hiding the objects or pictures in the bin.  For some of my students, I am working on just exposing them to different objects and naming vocabulary for them.  They may not yet be at the matching level, but you can still have them explore the objects or pictures.    You can also change it up and be creative with what types of sensory materials you use.  My favorites are sand, rice, pasta, beans, water, shredded paper, pine cones, snow, acorns, pumpkins, you name it, there are so many different fun ideas!  You can make themed boxes or skill boxes depending on the goals for your students.  Here is one I made for back to school to reinforce school vocabulary that the kids were learning.

I also use sensory bins to reinforce academic skills such as matching, sorting, identifying colors, shapes, numbers, and letters.  I usually bring the sensory bins into our work station to make academic activities more fun.  When I first introduce the sensory bins, I give the students time to just explore.  Then I model what we are going to do with the items in the bin.  The students learn the structure of the sensory bins quickly and it makes it easier when I introduce new bins.  Below are some examples of the academic sensory bins I use.

For these bins I made uppercase letters for matching and beginning sound picture cards for matching to their corresponding letter.

For these bins I made color matching and shape matching picture cards and hide them in the sensory bins.  You can use the same picture cards for matching or mix it up depending on the level of your students.  You can make your own sensory bin cards and matching mats or click on the links below to see the items that are listed on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Here is a link to my bundle of all academic skill picture cards and matching mats:  Sensory Bin Academic Skills Resource

I also have a link for my new school sensory bin resource:               Back To School Sensory Bin Resource

Happy Teaching!