Thursday, February 23, 2012

St. Patrick's Day Sensory Tub

Can I just take a moment to tell you how excited I am about this sensory tub? Because I am so excited about this sensory tub! I am forcing myself to wait until March to give it to the girls to play with, but it's killing me!

Last year's St. Patrick's Day sensory tub was one of my first sensory tubs that I made for Birdy. I chose to go green and gold. I used dried split peas as a base, and filled in with green and gold Mardi Gras beads, green buttons, gold pipe cleaner stars, and a few St. Patrick's day souvenirs left over from the St. Patrick's Day parade in New Orleans.


This year, I decided to go with rainbows! I used bird seed that I dyed in rainbow colors as the base. I borrowed the metallic gold stars and green souvenirs from last year's tub, and to them, I added a few other things. The rocks you see are actually magnetic. They stick beautifully to the gold "coins" which are actually canning lids. They also stick to the metallic gold pipe cleaner stars! 

To dye the bird seed, I took six zip lock baggies and filled them each with two cups of bird seed. I then squirted the entire contents of red, yellow, blue and green food coloring bottles into the bags. For the orange bag, I used 2/3 bottle of yellow and 1/3 bottle of red. For the purple I used 2/3 bottle of red and 1/3 bottle of blue. I then added about a tablespoon of rubbing alcohol to each bag. You might be able to skip this step. I've seen tutorials that don't call for it; I've just always done it that way. Once all the ingredients were in each bag, I sealed them and began to squish all the color around. Whey they looked well coated, I poured them onto paper plates to let them dry.

Isn't it pretty? I just keep staring at it. I can't help it; I just love looking at all the colors. I can't wait to see the kids play with this one. I had so much fun setting it up, I know hope they will have a blast with it.

What are you up to this St. Patrick's Day? Leave a link in the comment section. I'd love to check out other ideas!

Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

14 comments:

  1. I just finished making our St. Patrick's Day sensory bin as well, and am about to share in the next week. It is completely different than this. That is what I love about sensory bins though. A thousand people can do a St. Patrick's Day bin, and they will all be completely different. I absolutely love the one you made for this year! SO fantastically CREATIVE <3

    ReplyDelete

  2. Oh, I can't wait to see yours! Your sensory tubs are always great! Let me know when it goes live!

    ReplyDelete

  3. What a fantastic idea to use bird seed, let alone color it like a rainbow! I hope our St. Patrick's Day sensory box turns out even half as cute. :)

    ReplyDelete

  4. I just finished our St. Patrick's Day sensory tub as well. Your sensory bin is amazing! Stopping by from TGIF. Thanks for sharing!!

    Mama Of Many Blessings

    ReplyDelete

  5. Neat sensory bin. One to put on our list for St. Patricks day activities.

    ReplyDelete

  6. Gorgeous sensory tub! I love it! :)

    ReplyDelete

  7. It is very pretty.....I'm keep staring at it too! :) Question....after you're done with the birdseed can you feed it to the birds still? If so this is a fabulous medium to use...I always end up throwing away a lot of rice wishing I knew of something I could do with it..... Thank you for sharing! :)

    ReplyDelete

  8. That turned out awesome! Love how colorful it is!

    Stopping in from TGIF.

    ReplyDelete

  9. These are both gorgeous! I can completely understand why you can hardly wait to put them out.

    ReplyDelete

  10. It is actually an urban legend that birds cannot eat rice. I believe that Snopes disproved that urban legend. I'm not sure about the dye, however. If I hadn't used the rubbing alcohol to dye them, then I think it would be fine, but I'm not sure about the alcohol. I think once it's in the air it evaporates. I will look in to it.

    ReplyDelete

  11. I really like the magnetic rocks and using canning lids is great.
    You can check out some activities we did last year at
    http://strongstart.blogspot.com/search/label/St.%20Patrick%27s%20Day
    I'll be posting this year's after the day.

    ReplyDelete

  12. Very cool sensory bin!! SO colorfun & FUN - I want to sink my hands right in =-) Thanks for linking up to TGIF! See you tomorrow =-)
    Beth

    ReplyDelete

  13. Wow! very shinny and fun! We are putting ours together at the mo and finding it quite tricky to find bits. having to be rather creative this one.

    ReplyDelete

  14. What an awesome sensory bin ... I love the rainbow theme! I featured your post and photo in my 40+ St. Patrick's Day Sensory Tubs at http://livingmontessorinow.com/2013/03/11/montessori-monday-40-plus-st-patricks-day-sensory-tubs/

    ReplyDelete

I am really sorry about the word verification. I have been getting TONS of spam and this is the only way I can get a handle on it. I do love to hear what you have to say and hope that you will still take the time to comment. Thank you.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)