TWO sensory bins! "Invisible Fish" and shaving cream!

Pin It We've had a busy week! This week our water beads came in the mail (thank you Amazon!) and we dared step foot in the Dollar Tree. (I love that place, and now they have all the "Back to School" and teacher goodies out.)

So we had a long-term and short-term sensory bin.

The former is the water beads.
This is a spin my admirable mom friend put on water beads. Her children named it "invisible fish" and they were spot on.

The trick is to get water and water beads to be about the same hue. The "big things" you see are large, blue glass rocks. The bin is full of blue water beads, and I used food coloring to turn the water equally as blue.

Note to self and you: My friend did this with clear water beads and clear water. Good idea. My millions of beads didn't come with packets of clear, so I dyed the water and, in the end, my child blue. So either use clear beads or don't do this when you need to go anywhere nice or while your child is dressed.

Rockin' the fine motor skills!

V. doesn't have a great "surprised" face, but she was thrilled to find that it was more than a tub of blue water!

I mentioned revamping our tools bucket. That's it on the floor there, and it holds a rolling pin, a set of dry measuring cups, a set of measuring spoons, a set of those slotted bath cups you get a million of at your shower, a big spoon, various gauged strainers and funnels, bowls, "cheater" chop sticks, tweezers, a mini spatula, a liquid measuring cup, some Duplo and Clippo blocks (for textures and to hold fine items, like water beads), cookie cutters, and a toddler knife from her cutlery set. Most of these things I got at the Dollar Tree.

And we do call them tools, same as when we are cooking or gardening. She knows when to use tools or toys, and it makes it easy that I can tell her not to put her toys in the water beads. She would be very sad if she turned HER baby blue. (I would, too.)

Now, on to the next bin.

Dollar Tree has shaving cream. OH heckyes. They had regular ol' Barbisol and then a massive can of BRUTE. I bought the Barbisol because BRUTE said "Fresh BRUTE Scent!" on the side, and I didn't want my kid smelling like BRUTE, whatever that smells like. It is the Dollar Tree...

I put some pool and tub toys in the bottom. Because at the end of this, it was all going to the pool or tub anyway.

That's most of the can. And I'm not going to lie, it was more fun than you think it would be.

The first few grabs, she wasn't sure what to do.

And this is why we did this outside...

Have I mentioned how much I love having a pool? I love having a pool.

But just for more fun later, I took the bin inside and hid it in the tub.

Even more fun! (And it lasted all that time!)

She slowly added water and stirred it, telling me she was cooking. "I Ook!"

And then it all went down the drain.

So very worth $1.