Thrifty St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bin Fun

We're celebrating Saint Patrick's Day's day with two toddlers, so I thought it would be fun to make a holiday themed sensory bin for them to play in.  I honestly don't know who's more excited about it, them or me!  I also made it pretty economical too, so fun time didn't have to cost more than a few bucks!

My littlest two had a blast with the No Mess Winter Sensory Bin I made earlier this year using this handy table with storage space.  That was our bin again this time.

The goal of a sensory bin is to have lots of interesting shapes, textures & colors little ones can explore & play with.  For me a key element is that it's not uber-messy or edible stuff.  My 2yr old daughter has a wicked throwing arm so I don't need rice, dried beans or the like flung all over the house!  

Most of my supplies were dollar and craft store finds so it was pretty economical - especially since I can reuse a lot of them for other bin themes and crafts.  The bulk of the filler was various sized green & yellow pom poms, plastic gold coins and some green jumbo plastic jewels I'd bought years ago for a treasure chest for my now big kids:

I found some green & gold deco mesh rope (the kind used for DIY wreaths) and cut 2-3inch sized pieces of it to add some extra bling and texture. 

I got an inexpensive set of plastic scoops for them to use in it:

 

As well as some black plastic cauldron pots (5 for $1.25 at the dollar store!) to dump the goodies in.  I plan to reuse these for Halloween and maybe for a storybook themed one down the road (I'm thinking Strega Nona or Stone Soup):

I also got this tinsel shamrock (dollar store again) to add in:

I even threw in a single felt four leaf clover for them to "search" for:

I made sure there was enough to make the bin look full, but not so much that sticking their hands in it would cause overflow:

I think in total it was around $10-15 for all my filler goodies and when we've exhausted play with this theme (their attention with these bins averages about 2 weeks of daily play), I can stick everything in sandwich bags to use for later bins & projects.

☘️ Happy Saint Patrick's Day!! ☘️