This birthday cake cloud dough sensory bin is the easiest bin I’ve ever made for my son, who JUST turned 6! It’s also cheap and if you’re unphased by your kid’s cooties, you can bake an actual cake when they’re done making a mess. I’m gonna share with you how we used this bin and ways you can take it a few steps further to include more fun, more concepts, and more mess. First, let’s start with the recipe to make this dough.
Birthday Cake Cloud Dough recipe:
- Cake mix (whatever brand, whatever amount of boxes you want, whatever flavor…vanilla smells yummy)
- Sprinkles (I actually used leftover homemade colored rice because I made WAY TOO much)
- Scoops, cupcake liners, candles, toast imprints, cookie cutters, whatever you want.
Pretty easy, huh? I told you! You may have read other recipes that use flour, some type of oil (veggie or baby), lotion or essential oil to scent. And by all means, you can do that recipe too. It’s just less expensive and faster to do the cake mix. Vanilla cake mix naturally smells…well, cupcakey and is moldable without adding anything. Tada! The easiest thing in Mommy-hood since well….maybe ever.
For Fun & Learning
For Liam, this sensory bin was solely for the sake of mess making fun. This sensory table is in my living room so it’s not something I facilitate, besides reminding him to keep the mess inside the table 15 hundred million times. I could have added numbers, letters, and a boat load of other manipulatives to make this sensory bin concept learning too. If you wanted to do an activity including math and auditory processing (listening and following directions), you could throw in measuring cups, bowls and give directions for how much of what to put in a bowl and let their inner chef shine.
It’s All Fun & Games Until the House Gets Destroyed
I do have to warn you that playing in cake-mix is not like flour. You can’t smack your hands together and call it good. It’ll get stuck in your sparkly rings, ladies and undoubtedly you’ll have cake powder prints on your furniture and if you have a dog, that’ll be extra fun. So, my solution: give ’em a hand towel and before they dig in, explain the cleanup process and expectation before stepping away from the sensory bin.
Be sure to check out all our Birthday week fun, including our Birthday Rice Sensory Bin and Birthday Slime.