Sweet Tea Sensory Bin- more fun while learning

We love sweet tea down south so I thought why not make a sensory bin around that.  I thought my boys might really enjoys this.  We love going outside and playing in the water bin together and learning new things. 

Sweet Tea Sensory Bin- more fun while learning

What I came up with and what I did: 

I put tea in ice cube trays to freeze (I must admit I knew using sweet tea was going to make this sticky and it did.  Note to self next time just use unsweet tea).  Then I had my sweet husband cut lemons out of yellow foam sheets for the boys.  We had 2 plastic food lemons, I also added those.  When I was finally ready one day to set this out for them I grabbed a few plastic cups, play spoons, and a play tea pot. After I filled the rubbermaid box with water I added the play items to the bin.  I left the tea ice cubes in a bowl for them to taste and feel.  They added some to the water bin.  This was a great sensory experience for them with sight, taste, smell, and touch.  We talked about the color of the lemons and the ice cubes.  And my oldest had so much fun serving us tea.  My youngest enjoyed climbing in the water box as always and dumping water out.  They both liked tasting the tea cubes.  I would say this was a hit at our house.

My preschooler had so much fun pouring the water into the cups for us to “drink”.  Pouring and scooping water is great for gross motor skills and pouring the water into the cup is great for improving hand eye coordination.  (Again learning while playing and they wouldn’t know it).

Checking out the ice cubes.  I chose to move them up high so they wouldn’t put all of them in the water because as I stated above it was a little sticky.  If you are not worried about adding the scent to this water play you could just use brown food coloring for the ice.  However I think the smell helped make this so much more fun.

The great things about the lemon foam sheets is that the kids can also stick them to the windows if they like.  My oldest also used them in the cups of tea he made too.

I love trying new water play ideas for my boys.  I love playing with them and making new memories.  I love that a lot of our simple water play helps them work on gross motor skills.  We love to have fun at my house playing in the water outside and hope you and your family may have some water fun too.
I always forget to mention that most of our water play could be adapted for the bath tub.  With this one just use food coloring for the ice cubes.  Then the kids can play and be bathed after right in the tub:-)

Other post you may like: