Incy Wincy Spider Sensory Bin

Incy Wincy Spider is a classic nursery rhyme that kids just love to sing and do the motions for. Extending the nursery rhyme with activities is a fun way to incorporate the rhymes and songs that your toddlers and older babies love with learning. This Incy Wincy Sensory Bin is easy to put together and fun to use with your little ones.

Incy Wincy Spider (Itsy Bitsy Spider) Lyrics

 Incy wincy spider climbed up the water spout,
 down came the rain and washed the spider out,
 out came the sunshine and dried up all the rain
 and incy wincy spider climbed up the spout again! 

Incy Wincy Spider Sensory Bin

This sensory bin for toddlers is an easy one to set up. We love the blue rice and save it in a storage jar for use throughout the year as it’s an easy sensory tub filler that we can reuse with different themes.

Materials Needed for the Nursery RHyme Sensory Tub AND EASY Incy Wincy Spider TOY

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For the Sensory Bin

• 8 cups white rice
• Blue washable liquid watercolors or liquid food coloring will work as well
• Freezer paper or wax paper
• Gallon sized plastic storage bag
• Large storage bin
• Scoops, shovels, cups, or bowls
• Paper towel cardboard rolls

To Make Incy Wincy Spider and Sun

• Felt (yellow, black, etc.)
• Jewels or wiggle eyes
• Yarn
• Polyfill, fabric scraps, or something similar for stuffing
• Hot glue
• Scissors
• Needle
• Thread
• Sewing pins
• Marker

How to Make an Incy Wincy Spider Sensory Bin

Color the Rice with Liquid Watercolors

A sensory bin always has a base material or filler along with some added manipulatives. I used colored rice for our sensory bin filler. The blue rice represents the rain in the Incy Wincy Spider nursery rhyme.

1. Place 4 cups white rice in a gallon-sized plastic storage bag.
2. Squirt some blue washable liquid watercolor (or food colouring) into the bag. 3 good squirts seemed to do the trick.
3. Seal the bag and shake the rice around until it is fully colored blue.
4. Add more blue washable liquid watercolors if some of the rice is still uncolored or you would like the color to be darker.
5. Pour the blue rice out onto a large piece of freezer paper or wax paper to dry. You could also spread it out in your large storage bin.
6. Allow the rice to dry completely.
7. Stir every once in a while to make sure the bottom layer gets dry, too.

Add another 4 cups of white rice to the gallon-sized plastic storage bag and repeat the instructions above for coloring.

Once the rice is dry, it is ready for your sensory bin.

Sidenote: brown rice also works. We found the color to be more blue-green with the brown rice whereas the white rice color was a true blue.

How to Make the Felt Spiders

1. Draw a spider body on a piece of felt. Fold the felt over and cut out 2 layers of the spider body at once.
2. Cut 4 pieces of yarn for the spider legs.
3. Lay the yarn in the middle of the two layers of felt.
4. Use hot-glue to glue the spider together.
5. Use hot-glue to attach gems or wiggle eyes.

How to Make a Stuffed Felt Sun

1. Cut a circle out of 2 layers of felt. Cut strips of felt to be the rays of the sun.
2. Place the rays of the sun pointing inward on one circle.
3. Place the second circle on top.
4. Pin the sun rays in place.
5. Sew the felt pieces together leaving a hole for turning out and stuffing.
6. Turn the felt inside out. The sun rays will now be on the outside.
7. Add stuffing to your sun and sew up the hole.

Don’t be afraid to try your hand at sewing something like this. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I quickly sewed mine together and you can tell my stitches are a bit of a mess. The end product still comes out fine and my kids loved the stuffed sun. It adds another layer of dimension than just a flat piece of felt.

Setup the Incy Wincy Spider Sensory Bin for Play

Safety note: Always supervise children during sensory bin play. Be mindful of those that like to place things in their mouths. You can draw eyes on the spiders instead of glueing them on.

1. Add the blue colored rice to a large storage bin.
2. Cut a cardboard tube from a paper towel roll to create a water spout. You can also add other cardboard tubes to serve as water spouts.
3. Add scoops, shovels, cups, or bowls to the sensory bin.
4. Add the spider(s) and the sun.

Introduce your child to the sensory bin.

Let her explore the rice and interact with the materials in the bin.

Sing the Incy Wincy Spider song and show him the actions.

Take the spider up the water spout.

Make it rain by pouring the rice down the cardboard tube. The spider should slide down with the rice.

Lift out the sun and push away the rice (to dry up the rain).

Have the spider climb up again.

Sing the song as your child plays in the sensory bin. Encourage him to follow the actions in the song.

More Activities for Incy Wincy Spider and Other Nursery Rhymes

Incy Wincy Spider Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Incy Wincy Spider Science Experiments

Nursery Rhyme Play Ideas for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Spider Number Toss Game for Toddlers