Ocean Fizzy Sensory Bin

Here's another sensory bin that I found over at Fun At Home with Kids.  It's called a Fizzy Ocean Sensory Bin.

I really wanted to do this before we went to the beach while in California, but I didn't get around to it.  I used the baking soda mixed with water method that they describe in Fun At Home but didn't have any shells handy at the time so I just made round forms with some sea creatures hidden in them.  Then I added vinegar (with blue food coloring) to our spray bottles to spray on them and make them "fizzy".

Next time I'll use squirt bottles instead, our spray bottles really didn't release enough of the vinegar at once, although Bea still enjoyed seeing the animals emerge and the baking soda fizz!  And Charlie took a turn at using the squirt bottle as well!

After we ran out of vinegar I added a little water and the kids had fun splashing around and making the sea creatures swim.

At one point Bea even dipped her toes into the water!

Great sensory bin for a hot summer day!

Heather

Fruit Loop Sensory Bin

Bea loves sensory bins so I thought I'd start recording some of the ones we do.  Today it was pouring down rain the entire morning so since Soccer was cancelled I decided to pull this out.

Bea and Charlie both love scooping and pouring and since Charlie will still sometimes put things in his mouth I thought fruit loops would be a good option.  I purchased an inexpensive bag of fruit loops from Target and added some of our measuring cups and teaspoons.

Needless to say they played with it for about 45 minutes before we finally moved onto something else.  And they kept asking to pull it out the entire morning!  I guess we'll keep this in rotation.

Heather

Valentine's Day Sensory Box

For awhile now I've wanted to make a sensory box for Bea.  I've seen tons of great ideas online and decided to finally do it this weekend.

I went with a Valentine's Day theme after seeing this cute image on Pinterest.  The idea came from a blog called Pink and Green Mama.  We did a lot of the same things, dyed the rice pink using gel food coloring and alcohol (although next time I will absolutely add essential oils, the alcohol smell was overwhelming) and I also ran across the heart and lip containers in the dollar spot at Target.  In addition to those things I added some foam heart stickers (which Bea didn't want anywhere near her containers), a coffee scoop for scooping rice, a set of measuring spoons that I found at the Dollar Tree, some clear "gems" I found at the Dollar Tree, and a purple Easter egg container (this one Bea found and added, guess she didn't get the memo about it being a Valentine's Day box!).

I can't even tell you how excited she was to play with this.  I had it on her table when she woke up from her nap and just let her find it.  I think within 10 seconds of coming down the stairs she had it spotted and went straight to it and started scooping.  It did take a lot of "the rice goes in the bin, not on the floor" but part of that is also my fault, I think we need a bigger bin for her.  After playing with it about 30 minutes or so she wanted to do something else so we put it away, but she asked several times over the weekend to bring it back out, which we did.

    

Heather