Halloween Rice Sensory Bin

This post was originally slated for next week, but the kids loved it so much that I had to share sooner.

It is October and we are gearing up for all things Halloween! Sensory bins are an easy way for me to feel like we are doing the most with a theme or holiday, but really it takes almost no effort. I’m not a huge Halloween decoration person, probably because I am team #summerforever, so themed activities are about as much as I can muster in this season.

The purple rice shown in the photos is from last year! Head to this post to get the scoop on how to make your own colored rice.

Here’s What You Need

• Colored rice. This stuff lasts forever! It’s inexpensive, easy to store, and gets a lot of use. Even if you don’t make your bin themed in any way, I promise your children will love colored rice!

• Fillable pumpkins

• Plastic spiders

• Plastic bats. We have used the bats and spiders for a few different activities so far in the last few weeks and I’m happy I got both of them. I’ll be sure to share more ways to use them soon.

• Halloween eyeballs. I was hesitant to buy these at first, because do we really need eyeballs rolling around the house? But the kids went nuts and this really made the activity for them!

• Sensory bin

• An assortment of scoops, cups, or bowls. I usually just grab a handful of whatever kitchen utensils are clean and the kids always love the variety. Today we used a few measuring cups, a ladle, a kid’s bowl/plate, and a cup.

Set up

1-3 minutes

1. If you haven’t made colored rice yet, that will add time to this activity. I like to do it a full day before to let it air out and dissipate some of the vinegar smell. You can also put it in the oven at a low temperature to speed up the drying process. Be sure to head to this post for the detailed directions. We picked purple rice for contrast, but black, orange, green, or any other color you want is perfect for Halloween.

2. Gather your sensory bin and themed items. Grab scoops and dump in the rice.

3. Tip- I like to put my rice bins on a towel, blanket, or sheet inside and out! The kids generally do a good job of keeping the rice in the bin but spills sometimes happen. Rice doesn’t roll away on a blanket, so it makes clean up just a tad easier.

Note the purple rice on the blanket. Generally, I have the kids keep the bowls or plates in the sensory bin, but Vaila asked for a little extra space because Ellette likes to knock over everything. I knew it would be easy to clean, so it was an easy “Yes”.

Clean Up

2-5 minutes

1. Pick out and store your plastic bats, spiders, and pumpkins. I am trying out a new seasonal storage system for our sensory bin toys, so I’ll let you know how that goes once I get everything organized.

2. Separate out your kitchen utensils and wash or put in the dishwasher.

3. Store rice. My process goes like this: dump sensory bin into storage bag/container while still on the blanket/towel. Shake out blanket/towel into the sensory bin and dump out the bin into the storage bag for a second time. I store each color separately in a zip top bag and have recently moved all of my sensory bin fillers to a large storage bin. This makes the process of setting up a sensory bin quick for me.

4. Rinse out sensory bin and let dry for the next activity.

The fillable pumpkins were also a super fun thing to incorporate into this sensory bin. The kids discovered that different objects made different noises if you fill a pumpkin and shake. We spent a lot of time filling, shaking, emptying, and refilling those pumpkins!

All of the kids are very into making pretend cakes right now, so I had a lot of spider and bat cake the day we did this activity! Vaila is 4 and was very interested in working independently during this activity. Ellette still wanted help to open and close the pumpkins and is very into “Look at this, Mama!” right now. This was not an activity that I could set up and walk away from with a 2-year-old participating. My 4- and 6-year-old will happily play with a rice bin for an hour or more.

I’ll share more Halloween and fall inspired activities in the coming weeks, but this easy sensory bin should get you started! I hope your family enjoys it as much as mine did. Comment below if you try this Halloween rice sensory bin and let me know what you think! Cheers to Spooky Season!

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