Pom Pom Water Bin

The Pom Pom Water Bin. It is life.

PSA: Pom pom balls can get wet and live to tell about it. That’s right, pom poms don’t die when you put them in water. This pom pom water bin might be my new favorite way to use them.

RELATED: Looking for daily activities to try? Check out my activities program: Playing Preschool.

Water is the greatest thing to happen to pom poms

It’s time to join Team Water and get your pom poms wet!

I learned about the magic of wet pom pom balls from my friend Happy Toddler Playtime. She showed me that pom poms can get wet, get dried, and live to play another day.

Between the two of us, we have quite a few water and pom pom activities:

• Pom Pom Water Sensory Bin
• Water Table and Pom Poms
• Pom Pom Water Play Outdoors
• Pom Pom Soup

And today, we add my personal favorite to the collect: the Pom Pom Water Bin – actually, make that bins.

RELATED: Need more information on sensory bins? Check out my sensory activities page!

A pom pom water bin is so easy to set up!

You can’t believe how simple this activity was to make. Good activities are like that: they’re always the easiest.

Here’s what I did:

• First, I grabbed my 28 qt storage bin (Sterilite brand from Target). I used this to hold everything in place
• I added in two dish washing bins I grabbed at the Dollar Store.
• I filled one with water (and a single drop of blue food dye for fun).
• Finally, I dumped the pom pom balls into the empty bin.

I gave my kids all sorts of scoops, spoons, and measuring cups and let them take over.

RELATED: Do you love quick activities? Me too!! I have a whole page of easy ideas.

Let the children take the lead

My job in this activity was to “set the stage.” We call this an invitation to play. I’m inviting them to play however they see fit.

I made a bang up set up, but it’s up to them to run with it. That’s a whole lot of ups but whatever.

And run with this set UP they did…

The imaginary play was through the roof!

My kids (5 and 3 here) had a ball adding pom poms to the water, stirring, mixing, “does this more more?”, pretend / not pretend taste testing, and continuing on with their make believe.

My daughter worked tirelessly to make a pretend raspberry compote… I think she’s seen a few too many episodes of Sugar Rush…

The point is – they did what made sense to them and they worked for a long time. Nearly 45 minutes of pom pom water bin play. It was magical.

But how to you clean the pom poms?

You wash and dry them!

Use a colander to drain the pom poms from the water. Make sure to ring them out – try to remove as much water as you can.

Put the wet pom pom balls into a pillow case and knot the end. Don’t let them escape.

Wash in a normal load and dry with heat (still in the pillow case).

It works. I promise you. It works.

This activity captivated my kids…

It took them right down to a beautiful play level – working together effortlessly to make the pom pom water bin come to life.  There is something so magical about children and an open-ended bin like this. What a joy to behold.

When will you make a pom pom water bin?