Sensory tubs can be made out of absolutely anything you happen to have on hand. You could use buttons, pasta, fabric scraps, sequins, beads, lentils, beans, chalk, cotton balls; you name it! The point of a sensory tub is to allow your child to run the items through their hands, feel the different surfaces, fire synapses in their brains and so on. (You can see our earlier post on sensory tubs for all of the benefits!). We also use it as a tool to introduce new words. Like if we use colored pasta, we use words like "Rainbow" or "Hard" or "Bumpy". If we use fabric scraps, we use words like "Scratchy" or "Rough" or "Smooth".
When I was making one for BabyJ, who just turned 1, I tried to think of things I could put in a sensory tub that he wouldn't eat or try to stuff in his mouth. So I went scavenging in Jellybean's room and found some big, chunky toys for him to use and he loved it!
We used a Rain Stick (we totally scored this one for $1 at Value Village!), a shaker, a teething ring, a big teacup and saucer, a plastic bunny, a MegaBlok, a stool from a Little People set and a heart that came with one of Jellybean's games. BabyJ loved the rain stick the most, as it is full of little plastic beads that sound like rain when you flip it over. The beads were all different colors, and he was mesmerized as they fell! He also liked the fact that it is a very hard plastic that he could bang around on his high-chair tray :)
I was super intimidated by sensory tubs when we first started doing them with Jellybean, but she loves stacking and sorting things and pouring whatever is in there back and forth between cups and bowls that we do it at least once a week now. It's also awesome for fine and gross motor skills, so it's really a win-win activity!
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