Need some Valentine’s Day sensory bins that won’t break the bank?
Here’s another great rice sensory bin that also smells AMAZING!
Start out with a bag of white rice, a ziplock bag, and some red watercolor.
Pour the rice into the bag, drop some watercolor in and mix!
My goal with this batch is for there to be white, pink and red rice so only a little watercolor is needed.
Let it dry out on a paper towel – since I’m using only a little watercolor, this batch took less than an hour to dry.
Everything else I used came from my highly successful trip to the dollar tree 😄
Since the rice is the main component and it’s really “busy” visually, I wanted to keep everything else bigger or chunky but still following the color theme.
These balls are great because they not only have colors to name but also give opportunities to practice size comparison – is this ball big, medium, or small?
This one dollar bag of potpourri was perfect for this bin – not only does it add really unique textures and sizes, but it smells like apple cinnamon!!!!
Because of my goal to not make the bin too busy, I only had to use about a third of the bag so you can save it for future bins.
Lastly, these little heart candies just added a special Valentine’s touch while being exactly the size and shade of the rice giving little fingers something to dig and pinch for with their fine motor muscles 🙂
In case you’re new to my sensory posts – here’s my sensory tool recommendation!
These little things are worth the money (and really they aren’t that pricey – see them on Amazon here) because not only are they interesting to the kiddos but they are designed to work their fine motor muscles while introducing STEM concepts!
Each one uses a fine motor motion to work a simplified version of an engineering/simple machine concept!
These little heart containers were an amazing find and definitely this friend’s favorite!
Not only are they a great tool for fine motor (scooping, pouring, pinching, opening, shutting)…
…but they can also be used for language and math concepts (open, shut, empty, full)!
The potpourri also had these cool shells in them that were great for fine motor pinching and scooping, and math filling and dumping!
Obviously a sensory bin is great for sensory, but as you’re introducing all these unique items never underestimate the opportunity for language development!
“Ball!”
“Leaf!”
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