Make A Sensory Play Bin

When my 20 year old daughter saw that I was doing a post on this, she said something to the effect of “That’s awesome! I loved that thing!”

The back story: When our first child was born, children’s museums were a new thing. Actually, not “new” since the first one was opened in 1899 in Brooklyn, but they became the “new big thing” in the 1980’s and 90’s. They were all about discovery learning through hands-on play. Even babies, toddlers and preschoolers were encouraged to touch and manipulate – very different than traditional museums at that time.

So we toted our little one off to the ones in and near the Chicago area and looked for them in other cities when we travelled. Fun stuff.

A certain amount of messiness is okay at these places, even expected, but there were some lines drawn. For example, the messiest toy of all childhood, the sandbox, which is chock full of sensory engagement, was replaced by tables full of elbow macaroni, dried beans, rice, or other things like that. That’s understandable. Split peas don’t stick all over a kid and get tracked around like sand does.

Personally, I am a big fan of a sandbox. We had a small one in our yard when I was a kiddo and I remember especially liking to add just enough water to a section of it to get it to the right stage of slushiness, grabbing a handful, and letting the sand slide down my finger in big drips and watch them stack up until the tower fell over.

And in those days, every public playground had a big sand box. The park at the end of our block had one that was big enough for five or six kids to get in to – yes, get in!

So yes, we had a sandbox in our yard for our own kids – the ubiquitous turtle kind, of course - from the time our first was a toddler until our second was around ten. The turtle had lost an eye and gained a crack in his shell by then, but he had served us well through the years.

For an indoor version, I copied off the children’s museums. I bought a plastic tote, the size that’s about eight inches high. Ours had a home in a closet but I think one of those under-the-bed storage totes would be great too, especially for several kids.

Then I put in enough rice to make it about 1/3 full. I don’t remember how much we started with, but when I was in my local grocery store yesterday, I saw 20 pound bags of plain white rice for $8. Eyeballing the bag, I think that would have been about right.

Before it went in the bin, I dyed about half of it and left the rest natural. I used rubbing alcohol and food coloring but I see now that the same thing can be done with vinegar and food coloring. I never had an issue with kids eating it, but used the vinegar method for the photo on this post and it worked well.

We had our “rice bucket” for more than 20 years, believe it or not. My kids loved it and so did their friends. They’d bury little plastic animals, measure and dump, just run it through their fingers, etc. Admit it - you’re imagining the feel of it now, right? I kept it around after they had outgrown it for when we had company over with little kids.

Yes, there was mess. If it looked like kids wanted to get it outside of the bin, it got put away, but if spillage was accidenta,l then it was no problem and nothing a quick sweep or vacuum couldn’t handle. Every so often I’d add a small bag to make up the loss.

So if you are looking for something completely different as a gift, or just a fun no-special-occasion-thing to make for your own kids or grand kids, consider an indoor “sandbox” and get some sensory play going on.