Rainbow Water Bead Sensory Bags for Babies and Toddlers - Meri Cherry (2024)

With two little kids running around and art play groups for toddlers every week, we do a lot of sensory activities around here. I especially love water beads but since they aren’t safe for little mouths, we had to get creative with how to use them. These rainbow water bead sensory bags were the perfect solution. They are squishy and mushy, totally beautiful and fun, safe for little ones, and super easy to make.

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First, get some water beads. You can get these at your local craft store or flower shop or order them online here. We bought this rainbow pack. Let the water beads soak over night or for at least a few hours in some water. The directions are on the back but they are pretty hard to mess up. Put a bunch in a bowl and add some water. If all the water gets soaked up and they’re not that plump, add some more water. At full capacity they are about the diameter of a nickel.

Once you have plump water beads, get some ziploc bags, any size will do. Add a scoop of whatever color you choose to the ziploc and fill it about halfway with water. Add a splash of food coloring or liquid watercolor to the water. Seal the bag and duct tape it closed. Whenever I seal something with duct tape, which is fairly often because I’m obsessed with duct tape, I seal sticky side to sticky side. In other words, I rip off two pieces and put then on either side of the ziploc so the sticky sides stick half to each other and half to the ziploc. I find this to be the sturdiest seal.

That’s it! Now you have beautiful squishy, mushy sensory bags for your little ones to play with. Wasn’t that easy?

Kids love squeezing them and using them as a pillow. They toss them around and definitely like standing on them. I haven’t had one break yet, but of course you want to supervise your child while playing, just in case. For older kids that aren’t as curious with their mouths anymore, you can fill the water beads in a bucket with lots of bowls and spoons and scoopers and they’ll love it. We did some really fun water bead play here. Have fun!

For more sensory fun for the zero to two set you can download this awesome ebook I contributed to with 25 other super talented craft/play/mom bloggers. I highly recommend it!