Glitter Water Blob Sensory Bags for Fun & Learning

Glitter, food coloring & water in a ziplock freezer bag. Pretty basic.

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You know what? I debated about posting this activity because in the end, these bags didn’t last all that long. They are definitely a one time use kind of thing.  More of what I like to think of as a live in the moment sort of activity. That said, my kids had a TON of fun making and playing with these glittered water blob sensory bags and we entertained ourselves for a solid forty-five minutes.  To me that’s a win!

In my book, for an activity to be a win, it has to meet three criteria:

• It has to be fairly simple.
• The boys have to have fun and,
• They have to play with it for an extended amount of time.

This activity fit that bill so that’s a win for me and that’s why I thought I would share it with you! (Because somebody out there has to think like me right)?

Both boys actually asked for the bags the next day and sadly I had to inform them I had thrown them out because they were leaking, but, I would happily make more.

To make your own Glitter Water Blob Sensory Bags:

• Water
• Liquid Food Coloring
• Glitter (generously provided by craftprojectideas.com)
• Ziplock quart size freezer bags (HERE)
• Glycerin (optional)

I did have the boys participate in the making of our Glitter Water Blob Sensory Bags. With a little help from me holding the bag, we filled ziplock quart size freezer bags up a quarter to a third of the way with water. Next add food coloring and lots and lots of glitter. (The food coloring and glitter, as you can imagine, was the favorite part of the making). I did add a little glycerin to see what affect it would have but it’s really not necessary, and in fact, I don’t think it had much affect on our results at all.

These Glitter blob bags were pretty, they were squishy, and the boys enjoyed chasing glitter bubbles (aka: blobs) around the bags.

I love watching how the kids play with things. It’s often never what I expect. For example, my four year old noticed that when the bags overlapped they made new colors. This started an entire conversation around coloring mixing and turned into a fantastic learning opportunity I hadn’t originally planned on.

I suspect the seams popped when they decided they wanted to get their feet into the action and see what the bags would feel like if they stepped on them. It was a great sensory activity and so I put some towels down after the first few minutes (not pictured) in case we had any glitter bag explosions. There’s no way I would play with these (unless we were outside) without protecting my surfaces. High risk of glitter water explosions on my kitchen floor make this generally Mess-Averse Mom cringe.