Valentine Sensory Tub

Last month we made a birthday-themed sensory tub. This month we put together a Valentine tub.

We started with a 5 pound bag of rice. I scooped some into a ziploc bag and added in a few drops of food coloring and a couple of drops of hand sanitizer. I decided to use red and pink food coloring but if I had it to do over, I would have left some of the rice plain to give it a nicer color division.

Pardon the red tablecloth.  It doesn't make for a very good background. 

Bean loved rolling the bag of rice around trying to get the food color to mix in.

Also pardon our piggy bank for giving you a picture of its backside.  Some piggies have no manners.

 After we colored the rice I took some cookie cutters and used the pink rice to make hearts. The bottom right one couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a heart or just a blob. I think blob won.

I also added some pink curly ribbon pieces cause you know I had to “girl it up” somehow.

Then I realized I had made the biggest mistake...I had forgotten to hide the items in the rice before I made the heart designs.

But Bean quickly saved the day by running her hands through the hearts and they all went bye-bye. I’m just glad I was fast enough to take the picture of the hearts before she took charge.

For the hidden treasures, I used Valentine erasers, heart-shaped purple glass pieces, some white and clear glass pieces, paper hearts and scalloped circles and some butterfly, flower and ladybug foam stickers. Bean uses a long red spoon to sift through the rice and places the treasures in the red heart dish when she finds them.

She’s still stuck on “rainbow rice” though because that’s what I used last month. So now she will ask if she can play with her “valentimeb rainbow rice”. Whatever makes her happy.