How to dye beans for sensory play 

Are you looking for a way to dye beans for sensory play?

The easiest way to dye beans in my opinion is with – paint!

That’s right, I said it, paint. 🙂

I have dyed uncooked chickpeas beans using our metallic paint and they came out stunning!

It was perfect for a fun Fourth of July activity or a New Years activity for kids. 

The beans I dyed this time around are lima beans. 

Now, there are two types of lima bean sizes. 

The large ones and the small ones. 

I chose to use the small ones this time around. 

They were more circular and perfect for a fun dino themed sensory bin for my girls. *Supervision is advised.

So, let’s get into our colored beans recipe, shall we?

Note: To learn how we use paint to dye our sensory rice for play, definitely check out this post, right here. 

Materials:

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• Bin 

• Paint (I love this craft smart brand for my girls)

• 1 and ½ Lima Beans (we used small lima beans)

• Hand Sanitizer

• Zip Loc Bags (I used 6 small ziploc bags)

• Measuring Cups

• Parchment Paper (to lay out your beans to dry on)

How to dye beans:

I will include a how to dye beans video here for your viewing reference. Right below I will be including the steps you can take to dye your beans as well.

How to Dye Beans Video

How to color beans for play:

• Add 1 and ½ cups of lima beans into 6 small Zip Loc bags.

• Then, add about 1 teaspoon of a different color paint into each ziploc bag. 

• Add a squirt of hand sanitizer. (This is for the paint to flow easily.)

• Close your bag tight leaving no air inside. 

• Mix it all up until your beans are fully colored. 

• Set the bags aside and bring out 6 pieces of parchment paper. 

• Open your zip loc bags and add each color of lima beans onto each parchment paper. 

• Let the beans dry for about 3 hours or overnight. 

• When they are fully dry, use them for sensory play, pretend play and small world play.

Sensory Play Ideas for kids

So, now that you have dyed your beans, how can you use them for play?

I recently posted a story on my Instagram page, showing my girls bring out their toy dinosaurs into the sensory bin. 

The lima beans dry up looking almost marble like which look exactly like dino eggs. 

My girls pretended they found a dino egg nest and created an epic dino small world play!

The very next day, I made a fun educational play idea for my preschooler of sorting the dino eggs by color. 

I used a muffin tin with 6 holes, so she can place the correct colors into each hole. 

It was fun! And when she was over it, she dumped them all back in the bin and it became a fun sensory bin again!

I love sensory play. 

It is absolutely the very, very best. 

If you want to learn more about how sensory play is filled with benefits and over 100 sensory play ideas, do not forget to check out this post right here. 🙂

What other fun ways can you think of using these colorful beans for sensory play?

Happy Learning!

Will you give this How to Dye Beans tutorial a try?

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