Valentine’s Day colour sensory bin is a fun and easy way to teach specific colours to toddlers and preschoolers. Create one in red, pink and purple!

Focusing on one color at a time when you are trying to teach your toddler their colours is a great way to teach colours. Creating a sensory bin that only has one colour in it is a great way to do this.

For Valentine’s Day I created a red Valenties Day sensory bin for my twin toddlers. It included many different tools and items that were either all red or had a little bit of red in them.

It was very easy to set up and served as a great way to introduce and familiarize my toddlers with the colour red.

Throughout the sensory activity I used parallel talk and open ended questions to help further the learning.

I asked them things like:

• Can you find me the red heart eraser?
• Oh look, you are using the red tongs to pick up the hearts. Now you are using the red measuring spoon to scoop up some of the red rice!
• What’s happening as you pour the red rice down the red funnel?
• Can you find my 2 red pom poms?

Supplies

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• 41 Qt, Clear Sensory Bin (Large) or a IKEA FLISAT Children’s Sensory Table
• Washi Tape – red
• Pom Poms – red
• Coloured Rice – red (see instructions below)
• Funnel – red
• Measuring Spoons – red
• Silicone Candy Heart Molds – red
• Red Party Necklace
• Cardboard Tube
• Bowls
• Red Letters
• Scoopers

How to Make Coloured Rice

What You’ll Need

• 1 Cup of White Rice
• 1/2 tsp White Vinegar
• Several Drops of Red Gel Food Coloring
• Large Ziploc Bags
• Parchment Paper
• Baking Sheets or Tupperware containers

How to Make

1. Combine the rice, white vinegar and food coloring in a Ziploc bag. 
2. Seal it carefully and mix the contents throughly. 
3. Repeat for each color.
4. Lay a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet or line a Tupperware container. 
5. Spread the colored rice out on the parchment paper and allow it to dry overnight. 

Troubleshooting

If you don’t have gel food coloring, regular food coloring will work fine. If you want your rice to be more vibrant add more than just a few drops of food coloring and a small amount of white vinegar. Although the instructions calls for 1 cup of rice I usually make between 6-7 cups of rice for a sensory bin. 

For the cardboard tubes I wrapped red Washi tape around it .

N and A are twins. They are 23 months old.

WILL YOU TRY THIS VALENTINE’S DAY COLOUR SENSORY BIN WITH YOUR TODDLER OR PRESCHOOLER? Pin it for later!