Mixed Beans & Peas Sensory Tub

Sensory tubs are such great teaching tools and when I was recently cleaning out our pantry, I found a couple of mixed soup packets that were out of date and decided to make a colourful Mixed Beans and Peas Sensory Tub. Kids love to explore, investigate and play in an unstructured way and sensory tubs are perfect for this exploration.

What you will need?

You will need a medium size tub, spoons, scoops, cups, funnels and jars. You will also need a mixture of dried beans, peas and lentils.  We have used left over packets of different soups mixes that were no longer in date and re-purposed them for this learning experience.

This sensory tub can be re-used several times for future play experiences by storing the bean and peas mixture tub with a lid. We have a sensory rice tub that we have had now for nearly 3 years and still able to play with it today.

Let’s Play

My girls were fascinated by the different beans, peas and lentils. They have seen some of them before and others not so much and really wanted to taste them.  Each of them tried the different beans, peas and lentils and discovered they were hard and crunchy, and not very tasty.  🙂

Some Ideas:

• Scoop, sift and pour the bean, pea and lentil mix.
• Search for different colours and place them into different containers.
• Layer the different coloured beans, peas and lentils in the jars.

An extension idea

Place each of the different beans, peas, lentils onto a water soaked paper towel on a plate and watch what happens.

Let’s Learn

Learning Opportunities

• Fine Motor Development
• Hand-Eye Coordination and Control
• Cause and Effect
• Concentration
• Spatial awareness – experimenting with shape and space
• Language development – shape names
• Mathematics – capacity, measurement

Find more SENSORY play activities & ideas <CLICK HERE>