How to Make an Easy Water Bead Sensory Bin

Have you ever tried doing a sensory bin with your children?

Ever since I saw them online I wanted to try them!

So when I found a set of water beads in several different colors at my local Five Below for just $5-- I knew we had to do it and grabbed them up! This awesome set had 1750 in them.

And lo and behold--just a few days later I found the perfect set of ocean animals on sale at Once Upon a Child.

So this is what we did--we put them in this plastic tray bin like this one.

Mixed the beads and added the sea animals.

And the kids went crazy over them!

If you never had water beads before, they are wet when you touch them.

We even forgot to put the lid on a night or two and they were still very wet the next day!

I realized we even had some Octonauts around from when Bella was obsessed with them, so we used those too! They also went really went well them for this sensory bin. This is the set we used (add link).

These water beads have provided hours and hours of uninterrupted play for my younger ones. Even my older ones were like, "Hey, we never got these when we were growing up." as they checked them out too. It was funny to see the older kids enjoying them too.

I did this for my four year old because I knew she wouldn't try to eat it or put it in her mouth (she has always been very good about that ever since she was younger). But if you do it with a younger child that is two or three just make sure you keep a good eye on them so that they don't try to swallow any.

I am so glad that we tried this. It also helped keep Bella quietly busy for a good chunk of time while my older kids did school--and we all know how important that is! If you haven't tried it before, I definitely encourage you to give it a try.

You can find water beads HERE.

And ocean animals HERE.

I also had no idea you could just get a complete kit with everything already in it. I probably would have gone that route if I had known!

Have *you* done a sensory bin before?

Please share about it in the comments!


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