Creative Projects for Kids: African Swamp Sensory Bin

In my next sensory bin elephants are crossing an African wetland. There are plenty of swamps in southern and central Africa. I am really not sure that this specific swamp even remotely looks like African scenery, but since I had quite a few African animals I thought it will work out fine.

I used jello again as it is one of our favorite ingredients. This time I wanted to experiment with its color. I mixed gelatin with water same as I did before and added a few drops of green food coloring. I warmed it up and put it in the fridge. After a few hours, I poured the jello in a bin and added just a little bit of water to it. Then, I squeezed a few drops of yellow, red and green food coloring (just about three drops of each) and mixed it all together with a spoon. Even if you try to mix the jello well, you will not get a smooth solid color. You will still see spots of brown and green and this is the texture I wanted to have because it looks more like a real swamp to me than just plain green jello.

After I was done with coloring, I put rocks, marbles, a tree branch in the bin as well as a few frogs, a hippo, a crocodile and elephants.

First, I gave my daughter a few cups to play with and she poured the jello from one cup to another and back. After that, we played with frogs – they jumped from one cup to another, climbed under rocks and were having sunbaths on a tree branch. Then, our little baby elephant asked his mom to help him get out of the swamp. My daughter helped mother elephant to clean the baby with paper towel. However, he was not behaving; he jumped on the pebbles and felt in the water again. We repeated this game a few times.