Sharing 14 super fun St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Play ideas! We’ve been having so much fun these past few weeks with St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Play! Sharing below different ideas to incorporate the holiday into your sensory play!
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1. Rainbow Bright St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Play
Here’s how this tray came together!
This tray took me under 10 minutes to set out! We love chickadees wooden toys for their loose parts. Click here for 10% off the shop. (non affiliate, just an enthusiast for this brand!)
I used a wooden tray from Chickadees and set out a bed of mixed dyed rice as grass. I added some moss rocks from Target, a foam cauldron and gold coins from Dollar Tree, and added a rainbow made with rainbow rice. The wooden letters are from Dollar Tree as well. This took under 5 minutes to set out and Q had so much fun counting!
2. Mixed Pasta & Beans Green Sensory Play
My son LOVES green. He has since he was little. This is a great way to make a really fun mixed base for St. Patricks Day. My secret for great coverage on pasta and beans is using a little hand sanitizer with acrylic paint. Of course, this is safe if your child is not mouthing things. If your child is still mouthing I’d stick to water play – keep reading!
3. Mosaic Four Leaf Clover St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Play
I love creating art with mixed dyed rice and black beans. Q loved counting how many four leaf clovers he could find. When it got all mixed up he grabbed his trucks and dove on in!
4. The Pot At The End of the Rainbow
As Q gets older he really enjoys small world set ups. Small World set ups differ in that they have more of a story set out for them, like this one here. I used a bed of mixed dyed rice as the base, added some flat marble stepping stones, moss rocks from target, trees from target and large trees from Chickadees. The Cauldron was from Halloween and the rainbow is made by my friend over at BeFrendLee. All rainbow loose parts from Chickadees.
5. DIY Pasta Shamrocks
I found these giant pasta shells on clearance and we’ve made so many different things with them. Here Q and I painted the pasta green and then I hot glued them together to make four leaf clovers and shamrocks. I set these in a tray and Q had so much fun counting and playing with them.
6. Gold Jello Dig – St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Play
Here is where I’ll chat about taste safe play. If your toddler is still mouthing try just a bowl of water and use green food coloring. If you toddler is newly past mouthing try a tray of plain green jello, If your toddler is many months past mouthing try this jello dig! Q had so much fun “saving” the coins from the jello.
Tray and dishes found at homegoods and west elm.
7. Redyed Rice Sensory Play
Did you know you can easily redyed mixed rice and look at the beautiful tones it makes. Do this by repeating the steps of dyeing rice. Be sure to check out my All About Sensory Rice post! I layered the redyed rice to look like the beautiful fields of green we saw in Ireland when I was pregnant with Q.
8. Lucky Charms Rainbow – St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Play
I forgot how delicious lucky charms were until I picked some up to use in sensory play. One of my main rules for sensory play is not to eat anything. So we had a bowl of them before we played with them, and this curbed any desire. Tray from Target. Blocks from Crate and Kids. Rainbow Bowls from Chickadees. Four Leaf Clovers I made from Salt Dough – adding the tutorial video here!
9. Shamrock Rainbow Road
This is the holiday of green and rainbows after all! This sensory tray had a secret surprise, gold coins buried below it! Q had so much fun here for days after it was all mixed up!
10. Lucky Charms Mosaic
This was such an awesome for language development. We talked about what we saw, what was next to , above, below, to the left, and to the right of. The colors we saw, so on and on. He Then went and matched the color of his trucks to the color of the rice charms.
11. Counting Sheep – St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Play
I made these sheep from salt dough.
Here I used a @williamssonoma cookie cutter for the body, stretched it, used the edges to make heads, used my hands to form the ears,eyes, and legs. Then I took wooden numbers from @dollartree to make letter imprints. Once baked I set them in a mixed rice bean and pasta sensory base and invited Q to find the numbers and match them to the sheep.
Salt dough is 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, and 1 cup cold water. Mixed well and let sit for 20 minutes then knead really well. Bake at 175F for 3 hours – more or less!
12. Magic Water Play
Here I’ll chat again about a taste safe play idea. The sand here is actually ground up cheerios. Omit everything except the water and cheerio sand and it’s a perfect taste safe play. For Q he had so much fun exploring and finding all the coins. You can see how this $.99 coins went a long way these past few weeks.
13. Salt Dough Pieces in Rice
Here’s how to make these salt dough pieces. I set them in a tray of rice with some gold coins, so easy!
14. Ombre Rainbow – St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Play
It’s not St. Patrick’s Day without RAINBOWS! My favorite way to dye rice is hand sanitizer and acrylic paint. How fun is this rainbow where we start to see a hint of easter!
