My kids had fun mixing colored rice last week, and the result of the rice was such a gorgeous rainbow that I had to make another activity to use them again. We recently completed a rainbow unit, therefore we had plenty of additional materials to add to this rainbow Easter egg sensory play idea.
There are so many learning opportunities with this activity. Normally I just lay out the activity, and let my kids have fun for the first 10-minutes without interrupting with some specific learning objective. But for this sensory bin my main goal was to have my children open the eggs and sort the materials by size, shape, and texture (smooth vs. rough).
As they started playing, my daughter started handing me all the mini erasers and magnetic chips for the rainbow fidget toy I was holding. All the items fit perfectly in each spot, so it was a natural progression to start making patterns with the things we added to the colorful mat.
My son would find the items for us, and we would build the pattern color by color, discussing what we found along the way. I love when simple play items turn into an educational activity without my planning.
Materials For This Rainbow Easter Egg Sensory Bin
- Rainbow colored rice
- Colored plastic eggs (to fill with all the small items listed next)
- Mini erasers (Easter themed)
- Magnetic or bingo chips
- Foam stickers
- Rainbow Pop It Fidget Toy
- FLISAT IKEA table and bins or sensory bin to hold materials
Tools For Rainbow Sensory Bin Play
- Cups, scoops, containers, tweezers
- Magnetic wand
How to Set up The Sensory Easter egg Container
- First, gather all the smaller items, mini erasers, magnetic chips, foam stickers, and fill them into 8-12 colorful plastic eggs. You can randomly fill, or for added fun, fill them by the same item or exact color. My daughter likes to help with this step.
- Next, fill the sensory bin of your choice with the rainbow rice. Shake the sides of the container for even distribution.
- Then add the rainbow fidget mats to the two ends of the container. I used two, one for each child.
- Gently place the colorful eggs around the colored rice.
- The last step before kids has fun to set out the tools for them to use. I grab scoops, cups, tweezers, a magnetic wand, even a magnifying glass to a wooden bin and lay it beside the sensory bin.
- Show the activity to your kids and have fun!
Here is a list of additional learning ideas for this sensory bin
- Sort all the items by color (muffin tin or paint tray would be great for this).
- Counting 0-30 with materials.
- Group items by 5 or 10’s for counting practice.
- Size comparison (small, medium, large).
- Texture comparing and contrast soft, hard, rough materials.
For more sensory activities please check out my other activities for this subject here.
Here is my latest instagram post for this activity.
