This fun beach themed small world play is easy to set up and lots of fun!
There is no water in this beach sensory play set up so it’s a great, low-mess, sensory bin idea that is perfect for a beach or ocean themed learning activity, or just a fun beach themed activity for at home or in the classroom.
Whether you are learning about the beach, or just wishing you could visit, this beach salt tray imaginative play set up is sure to be a hit with your kids!
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When my preschooler was feeling left out of his older siblings play, I decided to try something new and set up some coloured salt sensory play. We decided on a beach themed sensory bin and it wasn’t long before the older kids wanted to join in too and everyone was playing together again!
This beach sensory salt tray idea was easy to set up and lots of fun to play with so I thought I’d share how we did it.
At the Beach – Sensory Salt Tray
There is no water involved in this beach sensory activity so it’s a low-mess option for beach or sea themed sensory play that you can leave out for a longer period of time, and play with it over and over.
The coloured salt offers a new sensory experience and it works well for setting up a small world scene for lots of awesome imaginative play.
Kids of all ages will enjoy the sensory play and the imaginative play offered by this simple beach sensory slat tray.
If your kids love beach and ocean themed activities they will love this ocean animal craft with free templates, and these fun, free printable, sea drawing prompts for kids.
Supplies for Making a Beach Sensory Salt Tray.
You’ll only need a handful of supplies to set up this beach themed sensory play activity.
- large container/tub (we used an under bed storage container)
- salt (approx 1kg for a large tub)
- food colouring (blue and yellow)
- 2 bowls for mixing the salt and colouring
- 2 spoons
- sea creature figurines (we used penguins and seals, but you could use any sea creatures you like)
- assorted rocks, glass gems and sea shells.
Plastic under bed storage containers make great sensory play tubs. They are large enough for a few children to play together, they are the perfect height to sit on a table with sides high enough to contain mess, and they have a lid so they are easy to pack away and save the play for another day. You can often find them for a good price at the dollar store.
How to Make Coloured Salt for Sensory Play.
Making the coloured salt for this beach sensory play tub is a quick and easy process that the kids will love to help with.
Simply put the desired amount of salt into a bowl add a quite few drops of food colouring (the more you add the brighter the colour will be, but too much colour may mean it comes off onto hands) and mix with a spoon. It will take a bit of mixing to get the colour to disperse through the salt, so give each child a turn at mixing and add more food colouring along the way if needed.
Allowing the salt to completely dry before you play with it will reduce the amount of colour that comes off onto little fingers.
How to Set up A Beach Sensory Play Tray.
Once your coloured sensory salt has dried you can put it into your sensory tub. We did half yellow and half blue to represent the sand of the beach and the sea water.
Now your can collect your items and accessories to go into your beach small world. Get the kids involved by talking to them about what things they might see at the beach, and what sort of animals might be on the beach and what would be in the sea.
My kids choose some penguins and seals for an Antarctic beach scene!
We set up a line of rocks between the beach and the sea to try and keep the coloured salt from mixing too quickly, but we didn’t worry too much about this as little kids love mixing colours and seeing what happens.
The blue and yellow sensory salt will mix together to make green, which sparked my kids to come up with a whole new sea themed idea of the deep green stormy ocean!
This simple beach sensory play tub is a great activity for kids of all ages. It’s a fun imaginative play set up that works for kids of different ages to all play together.
More Sea and Beach Activities.
If you are working on a beach or sea learning theme, or your kids are interested in sea creatures, mermaids, or the ocean, these sea and beach activities are lots of fun!
Try this easy sand playdough recipe!
Make a mermaid with this free printable mermaid playdough mat.
Find this ocean playdough mat set in our shop!
Love this post, the coloured salt looks great as water and sand! Had to smile that the kids all ended up playing together after all, so sweet.
This is an adorable post Kate. I am the youngest of three sisters with a 8 year gap between me and my next eldest. I remember them often wanting me around but feeling shattered when they didn’t. Your darling little boy. What a wonderful way you went about not just making him feel better but bringing all your children together. Great post. Salt activities are awesome.
This looks like so much fun! I love all the little details you added to your bin.
Loving all these clever and creative ideas with salt. So sweet how your activity brought them all together to play! Thanks so much for including our salt activity too x
How beautiful that everyone was engaged and working together – and no wonder! That tub is gorgeous. I want to play too! Thanks for including our salt painting in your round up.
I love that you used salt for your lovely imaginative play world. Such a great idea and so sweet to see all of the kids enjoying it together. When I make an imaginative play world for my son, I enjoy it just as much as he does.
Oh this looks super. I love that the older ones still like imaginative and sensory play too.