The Pearls are here! The Pearls are here! As I gleefully posted to Instagram as soon as they arrived… I have pinned dozens of Taste Safe Water Bead Sensory Play posts from all over Pinterest and I finally get to make my own! Giant Tapioca Pearls are the main ingredient ladies and gentlemen!
These are the little gooey gems you see floating in Boba Tea. I ordered THIS BAG of Rainbow Pearls because I was planning to use them for our Rainbow Mini Unit in Toddler School. I have already been using Minute Tapioca Pudding Pearls on The Mess Mat for quite some time now for our Incredible Ooze, but they are nothing like these! These are big, squishy pearls of sensory bliss.
This lesson, as it coordinates to my Mini Rainbow Unit for Toddler School is purely about the sensory play. Lets get our tiny little fingers into these sticky, slimy, colorful beauties and see what happens! I actually got myself up early and cut my Blogging Block short so that I could prep these and have them cooled for the boys by 10am.
How to make Tapioca Pearls
Yes, you do have to do a bit more for these than the microwave ones. The instructions are on the package and it is pretty easy. You must boil 10 cups of water per bag of pearls. {Honestly I was a bit underwhelmed by the quantity. All those other posts I’ve seen where kids are up to their elbows in pearls must have used 10 bags! I honestly did expect there to be more. One bag only yields about 3 cups of actual pearls. Nonetheless I was still excited to get them into action. I boiled them and drained them, then gave them plenty of time to cool for the boys.
*Noteworthy- don’t let them sit in the strainer! The’ll get all sticky if they get too dry. Remember, it is WATER fun, so after putting them into the play tub add another cup of water and they’ll plump back up again.
I presented them in the tub on the Mess Mat, then went to wake up the boys…
Wyatt dove right in. “A gooey MESS! Yes Mom! Yes!”
Cash needed some convincing.
He wasn’t too sure about this one, which I think was because of the sticky-ness. After I added more water to make them slippery, Cash was much more interested.
I think too Cash just didn’t really know what to do with them.
I remembered his initial reaction to the Rainbow Rice was to SORT it into the book we used.
If you want a few more Rainbow Lesson ideas you can check out our whole Rainbow Mini Unit in Toddler School or you can grab your own bag of Tapioca Pearls for your own endless Sensory Play fun! These are quite a few varieties!
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