Chametz or Not? Sensory Bin

I set up this Chametz or Not? Sensory Bin to let my kids explore and categorize different foods so they have a better understanding of what foods we can eat during Passover. One of the many traditions of Passover is paying careful attention to what foods you eat for the duration of the holiday. The Chametz or Not? Sensory Bin is a fun way to explain Passover food restrictions to your kids.

What You’ll Need

Sensory bin or tub (you can use a special sensory table or just a regular old box!
Sensory bin filler (we used flour and barley for one bin and matzah meal for the other. If doing this activity during Pesach, choose Kosher for Passover friendly fillers)
Play food (some chametz types and some Kosher for Passover types)
Sorting Boxes
Chametz or Not? Sensory Bin printable (optional)

Putting It Together

Print out the Chametz or Not? Sensory Bin printable if you want to use it to label your sorting boxes and to sing the sweeping song.
Fill your sensory bins with whatever filler you wish.
Add the play food. If you don’t have a lot of play food, you can print out pictures of food.
Invite your kids to sort the play food into the chametz and Kosher for Passover boxes.
Once all foods are sorted, you can sweep out any remaining chametz with a feather (we used a printed and laminated one).
If you want, you can also have the kids jot down different foods that would be found in each category.

Finished & Loving It!

The sensory bins we used weren’t huge so I didn’t need a ton of play food. But I wanted to make sure I represented many different types of food. If you don’t have many types of play food you can always print out pictures of play food. I did this with some Kosher for Passover foods because I wanted my kids to recognize what they looked like (and I have not done my Passover shopping yet!).

I also made two sorting boxes labeled with Chametz and Kosher for Passover. If you don’t want to use actual sorting boxes, you can just identify the foods as the kids sort them.

Once the kids start sorting each food item into one of the two categories it is a great way to talk about the five restricted grains and what types of foods we often eat that are made from them.

Different families may have different foods they are comfortable eating during Passover so this is also an opportunity to talk to your kids about that. My family eats kitniyot during Passover so we sorted any of those (like the corn) into the Kosher for Passover box since this is our custom and tradition.

We did this Chametz or Not? Sensory Bin before Passover started and used flour and barley for one of our sensory bin fillers and matzah meal for the other. I had the flour and barley already saved from a previous sensory bin so that was easy and I love that those fillers represented chametz! I also really wanted my kids to enjoy a sensory experience of touching and feeling these types of foods to further recognize their differences. And matzah has a pretty distinctive smell so I was happy they got to experience that as part of this sensory activity as well.

Of course if you are doing this activity during Passover, you will need to use Passover-friendly fillers. Depending on your Passover traditions regarding food restrictions, you could use rice, beans, or a non-food filler like shredded paper, jewels, or other loose parts.

The Chametz or Not? Sensory Bin has many wonderful opportunities for extension activities: you can count the number of foods in English and/or Hebrew, you can practice spelling the names of the foods in English and/or Hebrew, and you can introduce the symbols for Kosher for Passover that can be found on processed and packaged foods. I was excited to help teach my children how to look for these symbols. I also asked my oldest to write down different foods that fell into the two categories. This way we could be more prepared for meal and snack ideas come Passover.

When the kids were finished sorting the types of foods, we swept the chametz. This reviewed how we search and sweep in preparation for Passover. We also sung a little sweeping song as we did this important work.

My oldest one didn’t linger but the middle two did. They really loved the feel of the flour and matzah meal. It’s soft but can still be used to make piles and hide toys; so many opportunities for fun exploration!