As a daycare provider, one of my favorite activities for rainy days, or any other day for that matter, was letting the kids play with a simple homemade bean table. Bean tables provide toddlers and preschoolers with a great sensory activity and can be incorporated into a variety of preschool themes by adding props to them.

Bean tables do have the potential to create a mess. Laying out an old sheet beneath the bean table can make it easy to pick the sheet up after kids are done playing and dump any beans that have escaped back into the bean table. It helps to have kids play in an open area so beans don’t get mixed in with other toys or end up underneath furniture.

What You Need

• A large plastic storage container (I like the large flat ones that are designed to slide under a bed)
• A large bag of beans. Pinto beans work well but any variety can be used.
• Props – spoons, measuring cups, tiny toys, scoops, etc.

How to Use a Bean Table

Preschoolers love to bury their hands in the bean table and feel the texture of the beans between their fingers. Our bean table usually has a variety of basic props like measuring cups, spoons (wooden spoons are great for small hands), scoops from formula cans, and other things that can be used to scoop, stir, and play with the beans. We often add in toy dinosaurs, small dolls, and other hidden treasures that kids can hunt for in the beans.

My 3 year old has a sensory disorder and we often use the bean table to calm him down when nothing else works. Bean tables are a perfect activity for preschoolers, special needs children, and active children. Our bean table isn’t kept accessible to my kids so when we pull it out it is a special treat and can keep my kids occupied for hours.

What to Put in Your Bean Table

As a home daycare provider, I often incorporated a bean table as part of our preschool themes by adding related items to the bean table such as dinosaurs for a dinosaur theme, fish for an ocean theme, farm animals for a farm theme, etc. Individual bean tables can be made so children can play independently by using a smaller storage container.