Sweet Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin with Practical Life and Math Activities {Montessori Monday}

Valentine’s Day is such a fun holiday that I just had to create a sweet Valentine’s Day sensory bin for my 2-year-old granddaughter, Zoey. I already had my DIY sensory table and was able to easily put together a few activities within the table.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).

Sweet Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin with Practical Life and Math Activities – YouTube Video

Now this is TOO SWEET!!!

Sweet Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin with Practical Life and Math Activities

Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin

Materials Used for Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin

• • metal mailbox I got at the Target dollar spot a couple of years ago
  • white rice from the Dollar Tree
  • red food coloring or liquid watercolor
  • DIY sensory table (I totally love this. It’s been very durable and the perfect container for our sensory bins. Of course, you can use a bin on the floor.)
  • heart-shaped glass jar
  • 10 mini heart-shaped containers
  • small heart-shaped bowl from the grocery store
  • measuring cups and spoons
  • free printable valentine numbers from Creekside Learning (I used 1-10.)
  • foam hearts in pink, white, and red

Feel free to adapt your sensory bin for your family. These are just the materials I used. If your toddler mouths objects, be sure to use large enough objects or only have the sensory bin available when you are closely supervising your toddler.

How I Dyed the Rice

I mixed my ingredients in a jumbo-sized Ziplock bag. I used approximately 2 tablespoons of water to wet each 2 lb. bag of rice and then added red food coloring until it reached the color I wanted. Some parents and teachers use rubbing alcohol instead of water, but I recommend using water if you have a toddler who might want to taste the rice. Liquid watercolor can be used instead of food coloring, but again I recommend food coloring of some sort if your toddler might taste the rice.

Practical Life Activities of Opening/Closing, Scooping/Spooning, and Pouring

Spooning Rice into a Heart-Shaped Container

In case you’re wondering, Zoey’s Hoot Hoot, I’m Cute outfit is from Gymboree.

Having Fun with the Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin with Practical Life and Math Activities

Valentine Scavenger Hunt and Number Identification Activity

Finding the Number 7 Heart

I like to add a special hands-on activity using a free printable to the sensory bins I prepare. For this sensory bin, I used free valentine numbers from Creekside Learning. They’re available in numbers 1-100, although I just used 1-10. I printed them out at 75% so they would fit in my mini heart-shaped containers in case Zoey wants to put them into the containers. I simply hid them in the rice where Zoey would find them.

Heart Sorting and Matching Activity

Sorting and Matching Hearts

I also hid 2 of each color of white, pink, and red foam hearts. This even has a bit of sensorial activity with the color matching. Again, I just let Zoey decide what to do with the hearts she finds.

Zoey loves her Valentine’s Day sensory bin! She’s spent a long time with it already, and I’m sure she’ll spend a lot more time with it before Valentine’s Day.

I’d love to hear about any sensory bins you have right now. 🙂

Montessori Monday Link-Up

If you have some Montessori activity trays/lessons to share, please link up below. It’s fine to link up a post from your archives – and you may link up anytime during the week! Your post may be any Montessori-inspired activity or idea. It doesn’t need to be related to my Montessori Monday post.

If you’re wondering what’s considered “Montessori inspired” and what to link up (or not link up), check out my “What Is Montessori Inspired?” post. Link up your exact post URL so that we can find your activity if we return to the linky at a later date (which I often do when I’m looking for activities for a roundup post). Don’t link to giveaway posts (unless the giveaway is only part of a Montessori-inspired post). Giveaways in general should go on my giveaway linky. Also, don’t link directly to products. You can link up a review of a Montessori product or activity post related to a Montessori product.

I publish the Montessori Monday post and linky each Monday morning and keep the linky open throughout the week. Please place the Montessori Monday button (using the code from the right sidebar) in your post or put a link back to this post. I do a lot of sharing on the Living Montessori Now Facebook page from the Montessori Monday link-up. Thanks for participating!

Notes: For community discussions, please join us at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page. And don’t forget the Saturday/Sunday weekend sharing days where you may share a kid-related activity of any kind at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page!

It’s also Motivational Monday on Mondays! I invite you to share something positive on the Bits of Positivity Facebook page (Bits of Positivity is my other blog) to help us all get a good start on the work/school week. You might share an inspirational or motivational quote, positive graphic, or post about finding balance or simplifying your life. Or you might share a post on organizing, an encouraging post, a post about making a difference in the world, or a positive parenting post. Just go ahead and share on the Bits of Positivity wall any time today! (Please “like” the Bits of Positivity Facebook page if you haven’t already.) I’ll be pinning a number of ideas to my regular Pinterest boards.

If you have a giveaway on your blog, please add it to my Family-Friendly Giveaway Linky Page! If you enjoy entering giveaways, you’ll always find lots of great giveaways there.

Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy! I’m also one of the coauthors of the book Learn with Play – 150+ Activities for Year-round Fun & Learning!

Also, if you’ve ever been linked to in one of my roundup posts, please feel free to grab the “Featured on” badge.

An InLinkz Link-up

If this is your first time visiting Living Montessori Now, welcome! If you haven’t already, please join us on our Living Montessori Now Facebook page where you’ll find a Free Printable of the Day and lots of inspiration and ideas for parenting and teaching! And please follow me on Pinterest (lots of Montessori-, holiday-, and theme-related boards), Twitter (blog posts by me and others along with the Parent/Teacher Daily and other interesting information), and Google+ (post updates and Montessori Community). You can find me on bloglovin’, Instagram, and YouTube now, too. And don’t forget one of the best ways to follow me by signing up for my weekly newsletter in the right sidebar. You’ll get two awesome freebies in the process!

May be linked to Afterschool Express, Thoughtful Spot, Hip Homeschool Hop, The Mommy Club Resources and Solutions, Mom’s Library, A Little Bird Told Me Linky Party, Learn and Play, Link-ups at Squishable Baby, Preschool Corner, Sharing Saturday, Tot School Gathering Place.