Snowy Train Sensory Bin

This week the Virtual Book Club for Kids is featuring The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg. We created a snowy train sensory bin inspired by the book. Also be sure to check out all of the other train themed ideas at the end of the post. Affiliate links are included in this post.

Snowy Train Sensory Bin

While reading The Polar Express, I was drawn to the images of the train in the snow. That gave me the idea to create a train sensory bin with snow. We don’t have real snow outside, so we made our own. Do you make your own snow? All you need is ice and a blender that can crush ice. I love my Ninja Master Prep blender for crusing ice into snow. It turns out nice and fluffy.

After filling a large storage bin with snow, we added a train and jingle bells to the snow. We used the train from the Mickey and Minnie Birthday Parade Building Kit. It also has DUPLO bricks with presents and numbers. (See how we used it in our DUPLO Counting Games.)

Aiden said a polar bear should drive the train, so Lily added one to the front.

Lily drove the train through the snow picking up jingle bells along the way.

Then, she added more DUPLO bricks, a bowl, and a spoon.

If you child wants to touch the snow, I recommend wearing gloves just like you would outside. Snow is cold! My kids like to play with snow sensory bins for a long time. Once the snow has melted, they continue playing in the water.

We love to play and learn with trains. You can see all of our train activities here.

More Activities from the Virtual Book Club for Kids

See more train themed activities inspired by The Polar Express:

Polar Express Train Track Letter Puzzle – Adventures of Adam
Beginning Letter Sounds Train Ride – Rainy Day Mum
Spell My Name on a Train – Powerful Mothering
Polar Express Printables – Jingle Bell Count – JDaniel4’s Mom
Christmas Train – Mama Smiles
Trains & Magnets Sensory Bin – Preschool Powol Packets
Learning Colors by Painting with Trains – Views from a Step Stool
Train Pretend Play Fun for Kids – Toddler Approved
Train Ride Yoga – My Storytime Corner
Train Shapes (making a train with shapes) – craftcreatecalm
Building A Moving Polar Express Train with Preschoolers – The Educators’ Spin On It

Also stop by the Virtual Book Club for Kids Facebook page to see what others are sharing!

See our entire Virtual Book Club for Kids book list here.

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