Some things I've learned about sensory bins.

I stumbled across these things called "sensory bins" a few days ago.  For those of you who aren't familiar with what a sensory bin is- it's basically a plastic bin filled with rice, beans, pasta, cotton balls, etc. with some basic items like funnels, measuring cups, small plastic toys, anything really. The point is to engage your child's senses, sight, sound, touch, smell (this one's kind of hard), taste (they will put things in their mouth, or up their nose for that matter, so always supervise).

I realized after my first week as a stay at home mom that Rea's toys are just not cutting it. She would stand at her toy closet trying to decide on which toy to play with for the one hundredth time that day, and not be able to decide.  She was getting bored (and so was I) of playing with the light up, noise making toys that entertained her as in infant (she is now 20 months).

I had some spiral pasta, food coloring, and rubbing alcohol in the house already so I decided to dye some pasta and put it in a plastic container. I put the pasta in baggies, added about 1/4 cup alcohol, some food coloring, zipped up the baggies and let them marinate until I was happy with the saturation. Then I cut the corner off of the baggies, let the liquid drain, and laid out the pasta on parchment cover baking sheets until they dried. The entire project start to finish took maybe 90 minutes. Rea loved it! She played with it for an hour.  Here is what it looked like....

                                     Note: the alcohol dried quickly but the pasta still smells like it.

       The next day I went to the Dollar Store to pick up some supplies. I made her a black eyed peas bin...

She loved scooping the peas and dumping them in the tray.  She also loved looking at them (and my mouth) with the magnifying glass.

Last night I dyed some white rice.  I was out of alcohol so I used some white vinegar.  I mixed 1/2 cup vinegar, 40 oz. rice, and the rest of the green, blue, and yellow food coloring that I had.

I spread it out on baking sheets to dry.  The vinegar and rice took a lot longer to dry then the pasta and alcohol did.  I would stir it around with a spoon to keep the air flowing.

It took about 3 1/2 hours to dry completely, but it does not smell like vinegar.  I then put it in a bin and added some bugs, magnifying glass, and an Easter egg filled with rice.

I thought it was cute!  Rea did not think so.  She was so excited this morning when I got the bin out, but once she saw what was inside she backed away.  I thought she would love the bugs!  After I took all of the bugs out and showed her they were just plastic toys she picked up each one and let me hide it under the rice. After shaking the egg and playing with the magnifying glass, she put the lid back on the bin and said "bye bye bugs!" Oh well.... I had fun making it.

The bug box cost about $8 for everything in the picture.  I bought two bins. One to keep the supplies in, the other I use for the sensory bin.  When we are done playing I put the things in the sensory bin back in the storage bin and can then make a different sensory bin.

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