{Beach in a Box Sensory Tub}

While Sweet Pea was napping one day last week, Princess Pea and I made Sweet Pea her first official sensory tub! (Of course, she regularly engages in sensory play, but this was the first time I made an official tub for it.)

After our wonderful beach vacation in Croatia in June, and our summer spent in Canada, we had collected lots of beachy items: pebbles and gravel from the Baska beach on Krk (Croatia), seaweed from the Nova Scotia coast (Canada), and shells, mostly that my Granny had collected years ago since our shell-hunting expeditions this summer didn't quite go as planned.


So, we put them together to make a Beach in a Box!

First, I asked Princess Pea what kinds of things you find at beaches, drawing on her memory of our recent trips. She came up with rocks, seaweed, shells, and after a bit more thinking, sand. I told her we had all of those things except sand, but that's ok because we're making a rocky beach like the one in Croatia.

Then I asked what other thing we would need to make a beach, the most important thing that a beach needs to have. After a moment, she came up with - water!

So, she helped to fill the tub with pebbles, gravel, seaweed, shells, and water.

At this point Daddy Pea came along and commented that a beach really needed to have salty water, not fresh water. Of course! So, we got some salt to add, and Princess Pea mixed it in with her hand.

Then I remembered I'd bought a set of ocean-themed animal figurines, so I added a few of those, too.

We tossed in a little rake and an ice-cream scoop, et voila! Our Beach-in-a-Box sensory tub!

When Sweet Pea saw it, she dived right in gleefully, and Princess Pea was so proud that she had made a toy for her little sister all by herself.

Note: If you leave the seaweed in for a long time, it makes the water a bit gross (we found out the hard way and had to redo the whole thing!). Better to take it out when bubs has finished playing with it. We now have the seaweed kept in a separate bowl next to the tub. Also, we originally put in some blue and green pasta, too, which dyed the water a wonderful Mediteranean colour! But when we redid it the second time, we didn't bother with the pasta as they had gotten soggy by then.

For more great sensory tub ideas, check out this guest post by Quirky Momma!

PS - Wondering what we used to contain our sensory tub? It's an IKEA TROFAST storage tray that goes with their children's TROFAST shelving units, with a matching lid. The lid has a hole in the top for holding onto to open/close it, but I put a piece of tape over it so we can store it outside without creepy-crawlies getting in.


Linked to: Best Toys for Toddlers, No Time For Flashcards, Classified: Mom, It's Playtime, I Can Teach My Child