A simple bin filled with rice has provided my kids with hours and hours of entertainment. This is by far their favorite “sensory bin” and it is the easiest one I have made! Burying things in rice and digging them back out again is attractive to most kids, which is where the bury it idea came from for my ABC Find It! activity.
Recently Ladybug has really been enjoying this rice bin for another use, burying her mini alphabet collection objects and digging them out again!
I keep our mini letter objects in a plastic drawer system I got at Home Depot {I think} and it randomly fit inside of a canvas box my mom had {no clue where it came from}. I got the idea for creating a mini drawer set from Counting Coconuts years ago! I won’t bother explaining it all, since she did such a great job, visit her blog for details!
Each week I pull out the little drawer and use it along with our ABC Basket.
The whole burying idea came from Ladybug and once she started, she has asked to do it every week since, with her new mini collection. Sometimes I have bigger items in her ABC Basket and she will add those in too.
She is pretty specific about it being animals and tiny objects, no actual letters are allowed, although I always try!
All sorts of learning happens with the burying, we do tons of oral phonics work while we play together, it really is so simple and she learns so much.
Eventually we will take things up a notch and combine 2 or more sets of objects and sort them. I have always done this {with my boys}, but never with the rice bin! The rice adds a simple element of fun and attraction for her and entices her to want to work on phonics skills with me. Most of the time she has no clue she is even learning, she is just playing in the bin!
Note: Ladybug has never put small objects in her mouth {none of my kids did as tots/babies, which shocks me}, and she is very good at keeping the rice contained. Krash on the other hand, would have had it everywhere at this age! Use rice with discretion {and a blanket/sheet}!