Easy DIY Rainbow Salt Sensory Play for Preschoolers

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Make your own rainbow crystals for easy DIY rainbow salt sensory play with this super simple activity idea from Rachel!

These colorful crystals are easy to make and a lot of fun to play with – my favorite combo! With only two ingredients and under five minutes of prep, I got over an hour of independent play!

Check out these other fun rainbow activities!

DIY Rainbow Salt

Making these crystals honestly couldn’t be easier.  All you need is ice cream salt (it might also be called rock salt), food coloring and a few plastic baggies.

Dump some salt in each baggie. Add a few drops of food coloring to each one.

Then seal up the baggies. Double check the seal because you would NOT want everything flying out of the bag.

Hand them over to your little one and let them go to town!

Hannah loved shaking the bags.  She kept stopping to look at how the color of the salt was changing.

She decided when each one was ready. It really only takes a little bit of shaking to get the color distributed.

Once all the bags were shaken to her liking, I spread them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper to dry.

Let the salts dry for at least a few hours so that your child doesn’t end up with rainbow hands when they play.

Full disclosure: I had a batch of these crystals already made from a long time ago that I pulled out. So we didn’t have to wait for our new ones to dry.

If you wanted to, you could premake your own backup batch of rainbow salt. That way your kids could dive right into the next step.

Sensory Play with Your Rainbow Salt

I poured a bunch of crystals on a tray for Hannah to play with. All I gave her was a few small Mason jars.

You could add more or different supplies or no supplies, depending on your child.

Hannah loved the feel of the crystals. She put some in the jars and then added her own fine motor work by screwing the lids on the jars.

We took turns shaking each jar (make sure the lids are on tight!). While shaking the jars, we talked about the different sounds.

Hannah added and took out crystals, then we shook them again to hear how the sound changed.

She also used the jars as blocks and stacked them in different shapes and orders.

But her favorite thing was just filling and emptying the jars, screwing and unscrewing the lids.

These kept her entertained for so long that we will definitely pull our rainbow salt out again soon!

What is your favorite sensory material for independent play?

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