14 Exciting Taste Safe Sensory Play Ideas for Babies and Toddlers - The Scott Cottage (2024)

1. Sensory Beach: We Do This Every. Single. Day.

“Mommy, beach!” “Mommy, blue water!” the daily requests around here, and I am loving it as much as he is. This set up takes me minutes to toss out and he loves it every single time.

2. Chickpea Foam : Can You Believe This Foam is Made From Chickpea Liquid!?

That’s right – save that liquid when you drain chickpeas. We were making hummus the other day and i dove towards my husband to save the liquid! This liquid makes the most amazing foam and is totally taste safe.

The food coloring I use are here and here.

3. Rainbow Pasta: One of the Most Beautiful Taste Safe Sensory Play Ideas

Check out my post all about the five ways we played with this dyed pasta. I couldn’t get over how much fun Q had with this. I found these giant shells on clearance last summer and we’ve played with them so much.

4. Ice Rescue

Ice rescues are always a great idea. You can seriously throw anything into a bowl and freeze it. For babies choose larger items so there are not choking hazards.

5. Moon Dough : A first and a favorite

Moon Dough i feel was one of Qs first true sensory messy play experiences and he loved it. I set it out in a large sterilite bin on our kitchen floor and he couldn’t get enough of it!

6. Frozen Fruit in Water

Back to my freeze everything point – we had a HUGE watermelon over the summer and couldn’t finish it all before it started to turn, so I popped the rest in the freezer and it made for the most fun play! I currently have a pile of lemons frozen into a bowl. Frozen play is free and fun!

7. Pudding

This was the first sensory material Q was unsure about. It was a very new and very messy texture. After some time spent going back and forth to it, he got into it and every month or so I’d place some out again and now he shoves his hands right in. It’s fun to show them a wide variety of textures like pudding one day and rice another.

8. Lemon Play Dough

This was a summer time favorite. Check out the whole set up here. I set out a variety of lemons frozen and fresh and made lemon play dough. I love full sensory experiences like this!

9. Beet Play

I love playing with beets. Check out the play dough i made with it. This play here was so fun – here are fun ideas on how to play with them:

1: “Beet paint” I wanted to see if I could make a sort of beet paint, so I tossed in a few beets to our vitmix with some water and corn flour and this made the super bright pink “paint” in the white bowl.
2: Natural Colored Beet Foam: This was a few boiled beets, you can use chickpea liquid to make taste safe, and water in the vitamix and ta-da pink bubbles!
3: Beet swamp – in a food processor I processed some of the beets to make a sort of “beet swamp”
4: Beet “rocks” this was the easiest, I tossed the boiled beets into our “beet swamp” as “rocks” for the landscape

10. Chia Slime

The other day I posted 5 ideas on how to play with chia slime. Q loves this, it’s easy to make ( CRAZY MESSY ) but so worth it, I promise. See how we turned them into dinosaur eggs!

11. Taste Safe Kinetic Sand

This play was SO much fun. It was messy and amazing, I set out a whole kinetic sand party for Q. This is a really great easy recipe for it!

12. Jello – Classic Taste Safe Sensory Play

Jello is a classic. You can put anything into jello and it can lead to hours of fun ( for older toddlers) for babies you can toss some large plastic rings and cups inside for them to rescue, or even large animals. For older toddlers you can make it a really fun counting activity. We LOVE jello play!

13. Yogurt

Not much is easier then this! you can set out yogurt in a fun design, or use it as paint. We had a LOT of fun with yogurt when Q was a baby and even now.

14. Play Clay

This is also known as my air dry clay. It makes for amazing play clay, and a nice gluten free play dough alternative.