Pink Sensory Bin

 When I asked Sharli what kind of birthday party she wanted, she told me "PINK!" With that as my only guide, I moved forward with plans for a pink party. I knew I wanted to keep things fairly simple, more like a play date than a birthday party. The biggest hit of the day was our pink sensory bin. 

I bought 40 lbs of the cheapest rice I could find, a large bottle of hand sanitizer, and a bottle of pink gel food coloring (from the cake decorating aisle at WalMart).

To dye the rice you first empty the hand sanitizer into a bowl (use one you're not attached to, like an empty sour cream tub) and stir in the food coloring. I used the whole jar of food coloring. Once that is well mixed, add it to your rice and stir well (you probably want to do this in a well ventilated space). Let it dry and you're ready to play.

 I went to the dollar store and picked up anything I could find that was pink (it helped that this was around Valentine's day). There were little pink and red hearts, little pink gem stones, pink and red pom poms, etc. These all got dumped into our little kiddie pool with the rice.

 I found some pink measuring cups at the dollar store, and some cute little silver ice scoops. I added some scooping/pouring toys and utensils from the toy box and my kitchen and we were all set. Oh boy did they love this! It got played with for days! At night I would cover the pool with a fitted sheet to keep critters out so that we'd be ready to play again the next day.

 We did end up with pink rice everywhere in the front yard, but it didn't take very long to break down in the sunshine. Even if I'd felt the need to pick it all up it would have been worth the hours and hours of play for all the kids involved. They played with it until there just wasn't enough left to play with, and I had to throw the remnants away. THAT was a sad day!