How To Make A Valentine’s Day Colored Rice Sensory Bin

Create a fun Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin with pink and red colored rice! This easy and budget-friendly activity will keep your kids entertained with creative play ideas and Valentine’s Day magic!

Looking for a fun, easy, and budget-friendly Valentine’s Day activity for the kiddos? Let’s create a sweet Valentine’s Day sensory bin using dyed pink and red rice as the base!

This quick and simple activity uses supplies you can grab from Target’s Dollar Spot (or the Dollar Store if you prefer). With the help of some basic household ingredients, you can even dye your own rice pink and red for an extra festive touch. The setup is so easy!

Why Make a Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin?

Sensory bins are always a hit because they’re inexpensive, easy to set up, and kids absolutely love them! Using dyed pink and red rice as a base adds a bright, cheerful vibe that’s perfect for Valentine’s Day. It’s great for scooping, pouring, and digging, plus it provides a smooth, crunchy texture kids enjoy.

Add some Valentine-themed toys, and you’ve got a bin full of festive fun! Holiday-themed activities like this help kids engage with the season, build special memories, and enhance their understanding of the holiday.

How To Create a Valentine’s Day Rice Sensory Bin

What You’ll Need

Before you get started, make sure you have everything prepped and ready to go. The great thing about this Valentine’s rice sensory bin is how customizable it is, so you can get creative with what you have on hand. I linked what we used from Amazon, but Target’s Dollar Spot or the Dollar Store are also great places to find inexpensive Valentine’s-themed items.

• Colored Rice: You can either make it at home (which I’ll show you how to do in a sec!) or buy colored rice. It’s just as fun to make it as it is to play with it!
• Valentine’s Themed Trinkets: Think heart shaped gems, conversation heart erasers, pom-poms, or any Valentine’s themes toys and trinkets.
• Scoops or Tongs and Tweezers
• Silicone Cupcake Cups or Small Bowls (for sorting)
• Sensory Bin (or any container big enough for your child to play in). These are my favorite options: a sensory bin with lid for a smaller setup, or a larger sensory table for more expansive play.

Pro Tip: This sensory bin uses Colored Rice as the filler. But if you don’t have rice or want to switch it up, other fillers like Kinetic Sand, Colored Chickpeas, Colored Pasta, Cloud Dough or Valentine’s Day Edible Play Dough work great too! Click the links for step-by-step instructions to make your own.

Check out our blog post about Essential Sensory Bin Supplies to have on hand, making it easy to set-up multiple different sensory bins in seconds!

How to Dye Rice (Quick and Easy!)

If you’ve never dyed rice before, you’re in for a treat! It’s SO simple, budget friendly, and takes only a few minutes to prep. Plus, it adds a fun sensory experience before the bin even comes together.

Check out our post on How To Make Rainbow Rice with step-by-step directions, along with helpful tips and tricks for dying rice. Here’s a short version for how you can whip up a batch in no time:

1. Grab some uncooked rice

Go with the budget-friendly kind! You’ll need about 6-8 cups total, depending on the size of your bin.

2. Add food coloring

Divide the rice into ziplock bags, one for each color you want. Squirt a few drops of food coloring into each bag along with a teaspoon of white vinegar or rubbing alcohol per 1 cup of rice (this helps the color set).

3. Shake it up!

Shake the bags. Let your kids help shake them—this part is really fun! Shake until all the rice is evenly coated in bright color.

4. Spread out the rice to dry

Lay the colored rice on a parchment paper or a baking sheet to dry. It usually takes about 1-2 hours to fully dry, but it’ll be good to go once it feels nice and dry to the touch.

Now, you have beautiful dyed rice! You can store it in an airtight container and use it over and over again for different activities.

How to Set Up Your Valentine’s Rice Sensory Bin

1. Fill the Bin

Start by pouring the dyed pink and red rice into your large container or sensory bin. Spread it out evenly, making sure to cover the entire base of the bin. The bright, cheerful colors will instantly create a festive Valentine’s vibe.

2. Add Valentine Trinkets

Next, it’s time to scatter the Valentine-themed ttrinkets like heart erasers, heart shaped gems, and pom-poms into the rice. Hide some toys deeper while keeping others visible to create an element of surprise and discovery.

3. Add Scoops and Tongs

To make the bin even more interactive, toss in some scoops, tongs, bowls, and funnels. These tools encourage kids to practice fine motor skills as they scoop up the rice, use tongs to pick out Valentine’s toys, or pour rice into bowls.

4. Let Them Play

Now that everything is set up, sit back and watch your kids dive into the Valentine sensory fun! They’ll enjoy exploring the textures, sounds, and sights of the bin as they dig, pour, and scoop their way through the rice.

I buried the item into the rice and the kids enjoyed using tweezers to find and sort the items into the bowls and silicone cupcake cups.

After all most of the items were sorted, they used the silicone cupcake cups and trinkets to make “cupcakes.”

Creative Play Ideas for Your Valentine’s Rice Sensory Bin

Once the sensory bin is set up, here are a few extra activities to keep the fun going:

1. Heart Hunt

Bury the heart-shaped items in the rice. Challenge your child to find all the hearts using their tweezers, scoops, tongs, or even their hands. Have them count the hearts or sort them by color for an extra activity.

2. Valentine’s Potion

Set up a “Love Potion” station by including small jars, scoops, and Valentine-themed items like red and pink pom-poms, heart-shapes, or gems. Encourage your child to scoop the rice and mix in the items to create their own magical love potion.

3. Scoop and Pour

Include measuring cups, scoops, funnels, and small bowls in the sensory bin for a classic scoop-and-pour activity. Kids can practice transferring the rice from one container to another, experimenting with quantities and different tools.

Why We Love This Valentine’s Day Rice Sensory Bin

What’s not to love about this Valentine’s Day rice sensory bin? It’s super easy to set up, budget-friendly, and reusable year after year. Once Valentine’s Day is over, just store the rice and toys in separate bags, and you’re ready to go again next February. It’s a fun way to create lasting memories with minimal effort!

Whether your kids are on a heart-shaped treasure hunt or mixing up a Valentine’s potion, this sensory bin is sure to be a hit!