Valentine's Day sensory bin

Last year we didn't really celebrate Valentine's Day but used the opportunity to do a lot of fun crafts and activities with the symbols of Valentine's day, like hearts, candies, chocolates etc.

 This year I've come up with a sensory bin idea for this occasion.

What I used:

• one big container (IKEA)
• coloured rice - red, purple, and white (see how to make it below)
• hearts, candies, feather, beads (whatever you have) to search for in the bin hidden in the rice
• cups and bowls
• tools like ladle, tongs, tweezers (I couldn't find the tweezers :( )

How I coloured the rice:
You need:

• a zip lock bag (IKEA)
• 2 cups of rice (any kind of white rice will do)
• food colouring (liquid type is better than the gel)
• a bit of alcohol (optional)

How to do it:

Put 2 cups of rice in the zip lock bag, add 1 teaspoonful of red (or any other colour) food colouring and half a teaspoonful of alcohol. The latter is optional. It helps to get brighter colours plus your rice will last long if not forever...

Now give it a shake until the colour is everywhere on the rice. (I didn't but you can do it with your child. It must be fun for them to see how the rice changes colour)

I did the same with the purple rice. As I didn't have purple food colouring I mixed it out of red and blue beforehand.

I dried the rice on baking paper to make sure it won't stain my hand and to get rid of the smell of alcohol.

I put the rice in the container (half red, half purple - my daughter did the mixing) and I also provided some white rice for extra fun.

What I put in the bin:

1.  wooden muffin
2. purple butterfly beads
3. sparkly candies (cut out of a foam sheet but you can add real candy, too)
4. red jingle bells
5. wooden hearts
6. pegs with hearts on
7. purple pompoms
8. pink flower-shaped beads
9.  red feathers
10. felt hearts

I hid them in the rice as much as I could.

Extras: I cut out 6 hearts and wrote the letters of my daughter's name on them. I also put them in the bin so she can make her name when she finds them. (The easiest way to make the foam hearts is to use a heart-shaped cookie cutter. I pressed it on the foam sheet and cut along the print it made.)

E. was pretty excited about the bin as soon as she saw it.

She poured in the extra white rice.

She happily used the ladle and the tongs.

She used the bowls to put in whatever she found. (It was interesting to see that she separated them like hearts, round things like pompoms, bells, and beads all by herself)

She also enjoyed mixing the coloured rice with her hands.

After she'd found and taken out everything she asked Daddy to find what she'd hidden. Then they took turns and did the same again and again.

The next day I gave her 2 sheets with the objects she can find in the bin on the top and she selected them in each column. We did a little counting as well.

On the second day I also added the letter of "I LOVE YOU"
With a little help she could put it together.

She's been playing with it ever since.
-Mommy, we can play with it on the floor, too - she said and continued down there.

TWO other activities to do with the rice:

1. write with fingers
2. I spy bottle
   
   What are these? Come back later to check them out and I'll show you in another post.