Sensory Bin Planner: How Much Filler, and What's Safe by Age

How to use it

1. Tap the pink words and say who the bin is for. The age comes first, then whether things still go in their mouth, then the bin you have.
2. Look at the big number. That is how much of the filler you need to fill the bin to the depth shown, with the weight under it.
3. Pick a filler from the cards. Only fillers that suit that age and that mouthing stage are there. The amount changes with each one.
4. Tick what you already own in “What else you need”. Whatever you leave unticked is your shopping list.
5. Print it or copy the list to your phone, then set the bin up in the three steps.

What the numbers are based on

The volume is plain arithmetic: length times width times depth, divided by the 14.4375 cubic inches in a US cup. The weights come from how much a cup of each dry filler weighs in USDA’s food database: 81 grams for rolled oats, 28 for O-shaped cereal, 185 for white rice, 95 for penne, 193 for pinto beans. The units come from NIST. The sources are listed at the bottom of this page.

Two fillers have no weight. Crinkle paper and pom-poms are light and don’t pack, so I only give you a volume, loosely packed. Cooked pasta and water get volume too. I’d rather say less than make up a number.

The bin sizes in the list are rounded, typical sizes. Tubs vary a lot from one brand to the next. If the amount matters to you, measure the inside of yours.

Fillers to skip under 3

The planner keeps a “Skip these for now” list for every choice you make, and each item comes with the reason. The reason is almost always one of two: the filler is small enough to choke on, or your child still puts things in their mouth.

For the choking part I use three references together. The federal small-parts rule covers toys for children under 3. The CDC lists whole beans, nuts and seeds among the foods that can choke a baby or toddler. And nothing here comes from a rule about bins: applying them to dried beans and dry rice in a bin is my reading, and I say so in the list.

Water beads are always on the skip list. The CPSC’s page is clear on them, and I’d rather you never had to wonder.

A bin I’d start with

When my oldest was little, I dumped a bag of rice into a storage tub with a few measuring cups, and he poured and buried them for ten quiet minutes. That bin started this whole site. These days my youngest pours rice and oats for long stretches.

If you aren’t sure where to begin, start with rolled oats at an inch or two, one scoop and one cup, in the bin you already own. See taste-safe sensory bins for more fillers that go in the mouth, and sensory bins for 2-year-olds once pouring has replaced tasting.

Stay in the room. A sensory bin is play you sit beside, not play you leave running.