There are so many different tutorials out there for dying your sensory materials, but today I’m sharing my favourite way to dye beans for sensory play!
What You’ll Need
- Packet of beans from the Supermarket
- Liquid food dyes
- Hand sanitiser
- Ziplock bags
- Baking paper
- Baking tray
How to Dye your Beans
Step 1 – Separate your beans into ziplock bags. I often like to do a bag for each of my food dye colours but this time I decided just to do three.
Step 2 – Add a few drops of food dye to the bag. Add more for brighter colours!
Step 3 – Add a squirt of hand sanitiser. This seems to help create brighter colours and also helps to spread the colour across the beans without wetting them and making them soggy.
Step 4 – Zip up the bags and SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE! Your Little Learners will especially love helping with this step! If you don’t have ziplock bags, you can also use plastic containers or jars.
Step 5 – I like to spread the beans out on some baking paper to let them air dry. I’ve heard of some people popping them in a low oven but I haven’t tried this.
Step 6 – You’re ready to play!
I set up a simple invitation to play for my 3 year old and 1 year old using an old egg carton, some bowls and some spoons. They loved pouring the beans from one container to the next.
It was also a great exercise for working on those fine motor skills and developing the very important pincer grip!
If you’re wanting to start sensory play but you’re not sure where to start, you’ll love my brand new TOTALLY FREE sensory play shopping list! It also includes three bonus activities for getting started with sensory play today!
Just made the beans but maybe I used the wrong type as they smell very funky!? Does the smell go away from eventually? Thanks!
Hey Georgie! Yes sometimes they do smell a little but it goes away fairly quickly!
We just made these colorful beans too, but I'm wondering where I might have gone wrong–after waiting 24 hours for them to dry out on parchment paper, they are still so sticky. Thank you for your input!