It’s time for some a Fall sensory bin! I don’t know who has more fun with these: me, putting them together or the Hooligans, playing with them.

I assembled this one yesterday and surprised the Hooligans with it this morning. If you’ve never made a sensory bin for your child before, I want to tell you how simple it really is to put one together.

Everything in this bin, I already had in the house, and it’s all been used for assorted bins and seasonal play before. That’s the beauty of it. You can re-use these treasures over and over again, every time using a different combination of materials so you’ll never have the same activity twice. You don’t have to spend big money; go through your cupboards, your craft supplies, holiday ornaments, the kitchen drawers, your fabric stash, the toy box… You’ll likely find lots of stuff once you start looking.

The artificial flowers and wooden gourds were thrift shop finds from a long time ago. Some items, like the pumpkins and the gemstones, I purchased a few years back, at the dollar store.

The pasta and rice have been used for sensory play many times. I just bag it up and store it in between uses.

Until recently, the apples decorated my Christmas tree every year for the past 2 decades. Butterflies – dollar store.

The pinecones and seed pods, I collected in the yard this morning.

The pods were fun to take apart and remove the seeds from.

Raid your cupboards and think outside the box when you’re looking for items to add to your bin. I filled this little wooden bowl with large vintage buttons.

Scoops, wooden bowls, jars and muffin tins are perfect for pouring and sorting and organizing. Ice cube trays work too. Tongs are always fun and they’re great for fine motor development and preparing little ones for using scissors. Our favourite scoops are the little meatball-makers. We have two sets, both thrift shop finds.

I set the Fall Sensory Bin out in the yard on my SIX DOLLAR (!!!) thrift shop coffee-table. It’s one of my best 2nd hand finds ever! It’s the perfect size for spreading an activity on, there’s plenty of room for everyone to gather around and it’s super-light so I can easily move it around the yard. The plastic/faux wood surface doesn’t get damaged when we play with water, and paint and messy-play ingredients wipe right off. If you’re using your bin inside and don’t like the idea of a rice and pasta mess, simply put a vinyl table-cloth on the floor and let your little ones sit and play on that. Voila! Clean up’s a breeze.

So much exploration and discovery in one little bin! What do you say? Will you make one? If you need a little more inspiration, click here and here to see our Fall Sensory Bins from last year.

Don’t forget to visit our Facebook page and follow the Hooligans there too! I post lots of goodies there daily that don’t make it to the blog, and I wouldn’t want you to miss out!

https://www.facebook.com/happyhooligansblog

This is the easiest way to make coloured rice (this recipe does not contain rubbing alcohol):

The weather is dull and dreary here today, so I thought I’d make some rainbow rice to brighten things up a bit. This is super easy to make. There are all kinds of recipes for it out there in the blog-o-sphere, but I chose to make mine a little differently than most of the recipes I’ve seen. I also used a super simple method for mixing the rice which saves time, mess and materials.

Supplies for making rainbow rice:

inexpensive, long grain white rice
vinegar
food colouring or icing gels
food storage container with lid

I used a bag of white rice that we’ve been using for ages in our sensory bins. Whenever I make a sensory bin, I always save the base material for future use, so that means I have bags of rice, lentils, popcorn kernels, pasta, oatmeal etc. tucked away that we’ll likely continue to use and re-use for years. I just want to mention that most recipes that I’ve seen call for using rubbing alcohol in this recipe as an agent for “setting” the colour so the rice doesn’t stain your hands when you’re playing with it. A few sites suggested using vinegar as an alternative, but most who mentioned it, hadn’t tried it. I decided to give the vinegar a try so we’d know for sure if it worked as a more kid-friendly alternative to the rubbing alcohol. I’m happy to say that my rice turned out to be really vibrant, and I’ve run my hands through all the colours while it’s drying, and the colour didn’t transfer to my hands. How to make coloured rainbow rice:
For each colour, I used:

1 cup of rice
1/2 tsp vinegar
a gob of Wilton icing gel (you could also use several drops of liquid food colouring)

For your convenience, I’ve included Amazon Affiliate links for some of the products in this post:

An easy, mess-free alternative to using ziplock bags:

Most recipes suggest mixing the rice/food colour in a ziplock bags. The thrifty mama in me looked for easier and less wasteful method, so I went out to the recycle bin, and grabbed a margarine container that was headed for the trash. I cleaned that out, and it worked perfectly! Just give it a quick wipe between batches in case there’s any colour left behind (there won’t be much at all – the rice absorbs most of it).

Colouring the rice:

Pour a cup of rice into your margarine container. Then, with a toothpick, a stir-stick, knife, whatever… (I used a plastic toothpick that I could just wipe off each time), swirl a generous gob of colour-gel through the rice. Drizzle your 1/2 tsp of vinegar over the rice. Pop the lid on your container, and shake the heck out of it. Remove lid, and be amazed!

Drying the rice:

Spread each batch out on a plate or a cookie tray (I used styro meat trays – I run them through the dishwasher before using them for this kind of thing) to dry. You can place them in the sun, or by the fire to dry them quickly. It’s not sunny here, but it’s too warm to have the fire going, so I’m just going to leave my trays on the dining room table over the weekend. Doesn’t it look fantastic? To see how we played with it, visit our other post: Playing with the Rainbow Rice!

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