We love a good book and activity pairing so this Sukkot activity, Vanish the Gourds Sensory Bin, was created with the cute Sukkot book The Vanishing Gourds in mind. Per usual, it’s a simple set up and concept but allows lots of fine motor skill practice and then open-ended play! So many great benefits, plus a great book! Yay!
What You’ll Need
- Vanish the Gourds free printable
- Scissors
- Cardboard
- Glue
- Slot insert for sensory bin (purchased or DIY out of cardboard)
- Tongs
- The Vanishing Gourds book (optional)
Putting It Together
- Print the Vanish the Gourds free printable.
- Cut out the gourds.
- Glue the gourds onto cardboard.
- Once dry, cut them out.
- Set up a slot insert in your sensory bin.
- Invite your child to vanish the gourds by gripping the gourd tokens with tongs and transferring them into the slots.
- If desired, read the book The Vanishing Gourds and talk about gourds, fall harvest, and Sukkot!
Finished & Loving It!
First off, my kids were so so excited to see the special tongs I set out for this activity! I don’t want to give away any spoilers from the book but there’s definitely a reason I chose to use the squirrel tongs (yep, I stole them from our squirrel and acorn game!) instead of regular ones. Such a fun addition to the activity!
The kids quickly caught on and started transferring the tokens into the slots. I love this insert but you can easily make one with cardboard and scissors. You just need the slot wide enough to drop in the tokens.
I set the gourd tokens right on top of the sensory base. My goal was for the kids to be able to easily see the different gourds. I also made sure to point out the different colors of the gourds because my youngest is working on color identification and articulation in speech therapy. If you wanted, you could hide the tokens in the sensory base and add a seek and find challenge too!
Once the kids transferred all the tokens (multiple times!), they added some dinosaurs and just enjoyed playing. I absolutely love how they have fun practicing these fine motor skills, focus and concentration, and spatial awareness skills because it’s being practiced through play. It’s all fun and a good time AND they get free open ended play too! It’s the absolute best!
Sukkot is one of my favorite holidays. I love so many things about it. One of the many things I enjoy is the wide range of themes you can explore related to the holiday. Today’s activity focused on the harvest element of Sukkot. Not only was this a fun way to discuss fall harvest foods and their relation to Sukkot, it was a great way to practice fine motor skills and our speech therapy goals. So much learning and fun in one sensory bin! Chag Sameach!
We have a whole page dedicated to Sukkot, our Sukkot Hub. Check it out! It includes some of the Sukkot activities we plan to do this year, as well as the activities we’ve done in previous years.
And don’t forget our Sukkot Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, a wonderful way to introduce Sukkot! And, now we also have all 13 Jewish holidays bundled together in A Year of Jewish Holidays 3 Part Cards.
The following sites are amazing resources for learning more about this holiday:
Chag Sameach!
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[…] would work perfectly for this harvest holiday. I used the gourd images that I had put together for last year’s Vanish the Gourds Sensory Bin and just glued 10 of them to popsicle sticks, adding the corresponding number. Easy […]