Spider Sensory Tub

(E was 26 months old.)

You’ll need:

• Yellow and blue rice. {If you’d like to learn how to make colored rice, check out the Blue Rice Sensory Tub article.}
• Storage bin.
• Plastic spiders.
• Kitchen tools.
• Cups.

E went straight for the spiders and checked them out.

She put rice back on top of them to bury them

She did go back to them for a short while a few times but overall, she was a lot more interested in manipulating the rice.

Trying to get somewhere with tongs,

and making marks in the rice with her spatula.

Using a ladle to fill a plastic bottle,

then a different kind of ladle

and finally her hands

before dumping the whole thing again.

E had a lot of fun playing with the rice in many different ways, and when she’d had enough, she simply put all her tools and containers back into the tub and declared she was done.

What I learned:

• Another simple idea that took seconds to put together and kept E busy and happy for 20 minutes! {Granted I already had the colored rice but preparing it only takes a few minutes of work and no more than a day for it to dry while you can do a few other fun activities.}
• It wasn’t even the spiders that she liked best of all 😉
• It was the first time I observed her doing the same thing in such a variety of ways.

Additional suggestions:

• Bury other interesting items in the rice.
• Add more to the creepy crawly theme.