Home > Preschool Ideas > Taste Safe Ocean Sensory Bin

Taste Safe Ocean Sensory Bin

June 8th is World Ocean Day and as you know if you follow my blog I am a former Marine Biologist so it’s an important day to celebrate for me. I decided today to set up some small world play for J and T using our sea life creatures (which you can now get on the Rainy Day Mum Store) but as T would be playing with it I decided to use edible sensory ingredients to make it even more fun and safe for her to play with as well.

ocean small world playWhat you need to set up some Ocean small world play

Lime Jelly
Blue Food Colouring
Water
Porridge Oats
Homemade Chocolate Play Dough
Shell Pasta Shapes

Selection of different sea creatures

How to set up some Ocean Small World Play

Yesterday I set up the first part of the small world play by making some ocean jelly to use. I decided to use Jelly over anything else as it would be a great sensory experience for T (smell, sight and touch) and would be safer to use than other materials as although we are starting to come out of the other side of putting everything in our mouths we still have to explore new things in them first. We can’t get blue jelly (jello) in the UK so I had a packet of lime jelly which I made up and added blue food colouring to the mix which produced a great turquoise jelly.

sea life small world playTo set up the ocean/beach I used one of our storage tubs to contain it all. Then I added some of our homemade chocolate playdough (yes it’s still going strong! from the winter) in one corner. Used porridge oats for the shore line and then mushed up the jelly poured it in and added more water to the jelly side of it so that it was more liquid in consistency. On the beach I added some pasta shells and then J helped me add the sea creatures, sea weed and rocks to set up our sea shore.

sea life small world playI knew this could turn messy for T so I set it up on the floor in the kitchen on a messy mat. Took off T’s clothes and thought it would be OK to leave J in his (well he’s almost 3 – but I was very silly).

small world play idea for sea life unitThey both got stuck in. J was very into getting the fish to swim and the crabs to crawl up the shore. T loved the feel of the different textures in the box. I used dried pasta as I thought it would give a more realistic shell texture than cooked pasta shapes and it was great she kept putting them into the “sea” and taking them out again.

small world play for an oceans unitOf course we couldn’t have an ocean without doing a little paddling – I think this is the first time that J has wanted to explore textures with his feet but it was interesting his reaction – he didn’t like it – partly I guess cause I had had the jello in the fridge which meant that the ocean was very cold!

Sensory playOf course I didn’t think the ocean would stay like I set it up – and here is how it was by the end of the morning. You can see the “Jelly mud” all over J, his hair, hands, legs and then he decided to use the potty so it was then all over the kitchen, toilet and everywhere in between.

An impromptu bath, kitchen clean and floor mopped and you would never know that we have had some incredible messy edible Ocean Small World Play all morning.

Author
Cerys Parker

Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, teacher, mum, and home educator from the UK. She loves getting creative, whether it is with simple and easy crafts and ideas, activities to make learning fun, or delicious recipes that you and your kids can cook together you'll find them all shared here on Rainy Day Mum.

28 Comments

  1. This is such a cool bin – I want to play!!! Thanks for linking to the Sunday Showcase. This is being featured on this week’s linky.

  2. I love your ideas for this small world! How fun to include jelly and oats to the mix! I would have never thought of that. We’ll have to try an ocean like this next time. Thanks for sharing. 🙂

  3. How very fun and very messy! Was chuckling to myself at the progression of J’s clothes through the pictures! 🙂 You are a great mum, rainy day or sunny day!

    1. Thank you Jane – the clothes are in the wash. T’s diper that was pink is now pink with blue spots but I wouldn’t change it – it was a wonderful fun morning

  4. I love everything about this, Cerys! The shells, the oats for sand, the chocolate play dough for rocks, the color of your jello for the ocean water – simply wonderful!

    1. Trisha – that means a lot. It was so much fun to set up and J had a wonderful time bringing his turtle on the beach to lay her eggs and then swimming around in the sea as well.

  5. OOoh that water looks so realistic. Wondered how you would do it without blue jelly – very inventive!

    1. It smelled very summery as well – I guess using lime jelly and colouring it added to the sensory experience – now to think what we can do next 😀

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.