Fall is almost here, and with it comes a fresh start for classrooms, daycares, and playrooms. Whether you’re teaching preschool, kindergarten, or the early primary grades, this season is the perfect time to reimagine your sensory learning centers. The right setup not only invites curiosity but also helps children build foundational skills in fine motor development, problem-solving, and imaginative play. Is anyone else fizzing with excitement?!
At Autumn Fraser, all of our resin play tools are handmade in Pitt Meadows, BC, with a focus on durability, open-ended use, and sustainability. Every piece is made of bio-based Canadian resin, a safer and more environmentally conscious choice than traditional plastics. That means they’re tough enough for busy classrooms and gentle enough for little hands—all while being easy to clean with soap and water and your favourite classroom disinfectant.
1. Start with Seasonal Inspiration
Nothing draws children into a center quite like a seasonal theme. 🍂 Fall brings with it crisp air, glowing colors, and a sense of gathering. Across cultures and traditions, this season reminds us of harvest, gratitude, and light. Here in BC, we see it in many ways—First Nations harvest feasts and salmon runs, the gratitude of Thanksgiving, the glow of Diwali lights, the lanterns of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the remembrance of Día de los Muertos, and the shelter of Sukkot. However we celebrate, Fall connects us in a shared rhythm of slowing down, gathering close, and finding warmth and light in community.This fall, you can set the stage with lanterns, pumpkins, leaves, moons, dumplings and owls—all of which encourage storytelling, sorting, and hands-on exploration. Our fall sensory collection is designed to bring the magic of the season indoors, whether you’re building a light table invitation or a playdough activity.
2. Think Multi-Use
Choose tools that work across multiple sensory bases: playdough, slime, water tables, kinetic sand, oobleck, and even art tables. Why? Because tools that move seamlessly across different sensory bases save educators prep time, stretch classroom budgets further, and give children consistent, familiar tools for exploring new textures and environments.All of our hand made play tools; big stampers, play trays, and puzzles are intentionally designed for flexibility—so the same set can be used again and again in different ways. This saves space in your centers and makes it easier to rotate activities while keeping children engaged.
3. Support Foundational Learning
Sensory play is never “just play.” Tracing stampers builds pre-writing skills. Puzzles strengthen pattern recognition, logic, and perseverance. Play pieces that look like leaves and farm animals encourage categorizing and comparing—essential early math skills. Not to mention the stacking and stamping that builds crucial fine motor skills When you stock your centers with tools that have layers of learning built in, you’re setting children up for success while still letting them explore freely.
4. Choose Sustainability
Children notice what materials feel like, how long they last, and how they connect to the world around them. By choosing toys made of bio-based resin, you’re not only bringing beauty and durability into your centers—you’re modeling a more thoughtful, sustainable way to play and learn.
5. Invite Collaboration
Many of our tools—like rebuildable houses and large puzzles and story telling sets—are designed to be solved or built together. These activities naturally spark opportunities for practicing cooperation, patience, and turn-taking, while also strengthening social-emotional learning. When children work side by side, they’re not just making or building; they’re practicing the very skills that help them thrive in the early years and beyond.
By setting up sensory play centers with tools that are multi-use, environmentally sustainable, and built to last, you free yourself to focus on what matters most—creating engaging invitations to play. Fall offers so many natural themes to draw from—light, gathering, harvest, and warmth—that children naturally connect with through storytelling, sensory exploration, and shared play.
Whether you are playing at home, Strong Start, Preschool, or Elementary School, these kinds of invitations reflect the spirit of BC’s Early Learning Framework, which emphasizes inclusive practice, nature-based exploration, and meaningful engagement with the world around us. Choosing durable, nature-rooted play tools—like handmade resin pieces alongside cloth, wood, or metal—ensures that every center you set up is both rich in sensory possibilities and connected to the larger vision of early learning in BC.
✨ This fall, let’s make sensory learning centers places where curiosity, sustainability, and creativity meet.
👉 Shop our Fall Collection to refresh your classroom or playroom today.