Ocean sensory tub

 Ocean week deserved its very own sensory tub.  Yes, I brought all of these materials to the beach! If we hadn't actually been going to the ocean, my tub would likely have consisted of sand and sand toys.

Since sand and water were going to be readily available, I decided to bring a pack of these awesome blue water beads. They start off tiny, but when put in water...

They begin to grow!!

Here they are about thirty minutes after being put in some water. They've already gotten so big!

First I let the kids explore the water beads with just their hands. There was still about an inch of water in the tub, so that made the water beads slippery, fun to scoop up, and fun to plop.  The girls marveled at them, squishing them, shooting them through their fingers, and trying to grab big handfuls.  I think they could have done this forever.

Later, I added some sea creatures to the tub.

The next day I took out the sea creatures, put shells of all shapes and sizes in, and also emptied out all of the water. 

The fouth time we played with it, I provided little "nets" and scoops so they could do some fill/spill work. Each time I pulled it out, they sustained on it for sooo long! It was simply an awesome texture tub! I am so excited to buy and try more colors of the water beads. We're also going to play with them on the light table.  I only bought one pack of the blue- I should have gotten two- it would have been the perfect amount, I think. (though you seriously cannot have too many of these awesome beads!)