Preschool Valentines Sensory Bin with Frozen Hearts

Inside: This preschool Valentines sensory bin adds a bit of science as we explore what happens as the frozen hearts melt. A fun, hands-on activity!

I love that even after teaching for so many years, I can continue to find ideas we’ve never tried before!

I put together a preschool valentines sensory bin with frozen hearts that is easy peasy simple!

I froze water in various heart-shaped containers, added some pony beads and red coloring in some, and tossed it all into a sensory bin.

This year we seem to be on a roll with Valentines ice activities. I’ve recently shared how we painted on heart-shaped ice, sprinkling powder paint on top. We also had fun painting with frozen hearts! Now we are adding this frozen hearts sensory bin to the collection.

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Preschool Valentines Sensory Bin with Frozen Hearts

Note: Because of the smaller pieces, this Valentines sensory bin is geared for preschoolers. Check out this simpler frozen hearts sensory bin for toddlers!

Here’s what we used:

• • • Giant heart cookie pan
    • We also used heart ice cube trays
    • Heart pony beads

Preparing the activity:

Pour water in the trays and freeze. We added red liquid watercolor to our small hearts and the pony beads to the large hearts. (This is optional – if you have younger children who still put things in their mouths, omit the beads.)

Right before the preschoolers arrived, we placed the pans of frozen hearts into our sensory tub.  By the time they were ready to play with it, the ice had melted somewhat, creating a nice mixture of ice and water.

They used the tips of their thumbs and fingers to pry the heart beads from the ice, and also the small frozen hearts from their trays.

It took great concentration to pop the hearts out!

Once the ice popped out of the larger heart tray, the preschoolers filled it with the small hearts. Then, they put them back into the small ice cube tray. (The teacher in me loved the 1:1 correspondence going on, of course!)

Like I said, easy peasy fun! And clean up is a breeze because everything gets rinsed in the sink.

Make sure to pop over to our Valentine’s Day pin board!

This activity is part of our favorite collection of Valentine activities. Check out the other 8 here: