Valentine Chickpeas

I’ve been gathering some Valentine ideas for these next few weeks and knew that I had to incorporate something new into our sensory play. The girls have been playing with their construction vehicles in black beans and have really enjoyed scooping and pouring, so I thought dried chickpeas would be a great link! Annnnddd they’re big enough so that if they do (who am I kidding … WHEN THEY DO) get spilled on the Gathre mat, the girls can use their pincher grasp to pick them up!

Over the past few months I’ve come across so many tutorials for coloring chickpeas! And Next Comes L and The Imagination Tree use liquid watercolors and swear the chickpeas dry almost immediately! Parenting Chaos uses acrylic paint! I had neither liquid watercolors or acrylic paint on hand, but I did have my favorite do-it-all Crayola Washable Paint!

All of the tutorials had the “put the dried chickpeas in a bag, add your coloring, seal, and shake” instructions, so Emersyn and I added some paint to the bags and shook away! We let the chickpeas dry on parchment paper and within a few minutes they were ready to go!

I added some Valentine-colored pails and the girls sensory bin scoops from Montessori ReStore off Etsy, and off they went! The possibilities are endless! They did a lot of scooping and pouring today, but I can’t wait to show them sorting, hiding, and so many other things.

Sensory bins are so open ended and can be added upon to continue to cultivate interest. I have some fuzzy pom poms, heart cookie cutters, and glitter hearts when the initial interest dies down. Pretty sure chickpeas are my new favorite sensory bin filler!