I’m pulling out all of my old-school stops this summer. If you’re looking for an inexpensive sensory idea, make a bin of colored rice! I used to have one of these when my oldest was little and then a kiddo friend threw up in it. So, that got dumped. It’s only taken me about 3 years to make another, but I forgot how easy and fun it is. Buy a jumbo bag of rice (Tom Thumb has them…they’re not hard to find), food coloring, vinegar, gallon sized Ziplock bags, and you’re good go to. Your kids can help you make the rice if you want to prolong the activity, or you can make it ahead of time but be prepared for random fascination. My kids love to mix up the different colored rice into the bucket, scoop and pour, bury objects, etc. etc…all the same things that they do with our “bean bucket” if you saw that post. Rice does tend to fling around…especially with a toddler…so go outside or get your broom ready, but it’s worth it for the shockingly long amount of time that mine will spend playing with it. It’s like a kid Zen garden. And, I always put a beach towel under our sensory buckets so that it helps with cleaning up – I just pour everything that fell onto the towel back in the bucket and sweep up the rest. 
To make the colored rice, use the ratio of 1 cup of rice, 1 Tbsp vinegar, and food coloring and go to town. I bought a huge bag of rice and divided about 5 cups of rice in each gallon bag, added 5 Tbsp vinegar, and started with about 20 drops of food coloring and adjusted as needed for each color – some I added about 10 more to brighten them up a bit. Shake the bag really well to coat the rice and then open it up to dry or spread it in a throw-away foil pan to dry a little faster. My one tip is that if you are mixing the food dye to make a new color (like purple), combined the food dye drops in a measuring spoon or something before you drop them into the rice, otherwise you’ll have rice that soaks up one color or the other more and it won’t look as pretty as you’ll want…or maybe I’m just obsessive…but I’m passing it along. Oh….and I will add that if you have even the slightest bit of OCD, trying to make this pretty rainbow will drive you half insane. And then seeing how delighted your kids are to mix the colors the INSTANT they have access to the bin is potentially defeating. So, I’ve heard 😉 You have been warned. Have fun and tell me know how yours turns out!
PS I clearly took my small joys where I could…and preferred to look at the bottom of the bin that was still somewhat pretty 😉 …and also to ignore loads of left-over 4th of July tattoos that were still going strong.