TASTE SAFE RAINBOW SENSORY BIN

Imagine this: you’ve got five kids in the house. You automatically presumed you’d be taking them outside today and as you double check the weather you realize it’s way colder than you thought it was. So now you’ve got two options. One, you could panic. Two, you could quickly throw together this taste safe rainbow sensory bin! 

MATERIALS USED

• One can of whipped cream 
• 1 1/2C of yogurt (I used the PC coconut based ‘yogurt’)
• Ikea Flisat Table
• Ikea Trofast Bins
• Squigz 
• Various utensils 
• Food colouring

I used a mixture of part whipped cream, part coconut yogurt alternative for one main reason: that’s what I had in the fridge! Both were inching towards their best before dates and neither had enough left to be used by itself. The whipped cream gave it a nice fluffiness and the vanilla yogurt gave it a great scent with some bonus protein and iron (okay maybe not much of either of those, but every bit counts when it comes to picky toddlers!). So don’t stress if you only have one or the other – use what you have hanging out in the fridge! 

Sensory bins can be intimidating at first but once you’ve got the basics, they’re so easy to throw together! They’re fun to play with, can use up a good chunk of time on an empty schedule day and taste safe ones like this are perfect when you have a mixture of ages to appeal to. 

Some things you can focus on during playtime in this bin are:

• Colour mixing: what happens when we mix two different rainbow colours together? 
• Can you match the Squigz to their rainbow section?
• How high can we stack the Squigz? 
• Which utensils are best for scooping the rainbow? 
• How does the rainbow mixture move? Does it spread, can it hold it’s shape?

Now fair warning: our playroom was covered in rainbow splatters by the end of this thanks to the eldest two realizing they could coat their fingers in yogurt and then wave them around like they just don’t care.

I really try not to tell them they can’t do something while they’re experimenting in a sensory bin so I let them – but stopped them before they tossed entire hand scoops into the air and redirected them in another direction… So, as with many sensory bin set ups, always be prepared for the cleanup.

This could also be a great outdoor activity or a fun bathtub one. Since it is food based, be sure to clean up asap to avoid not so fun outcomes like bugs. It’s one of the main reasons I chose the Squigz as the matching rainbow component as well as kitchen utensils: they’re all dishwasher safe!

Don’t have yogurt or whipped cream? Some other bases you could use are:

• Icing
• Mayonnaise (maybe? Might smell a lil funny)
• Oobleck

Don’t need it to be taste safe? You could use:

• Shaving Cream 
• Conditioner 

So there you have it! The taste safe rainbow sensory bin. Be sure to check out some of the other quick and easy sensory bins we’ve done!  

EASY OOBLECK SENSORY BIN

AQUATIC SENSORY BIN