Photo provided by ba1969.
So you’ve found a way to create a sensory table without a huge hit to your budget. Now how do you keep it filled with a variety of materials without dipping into your rainy day fund? There are plenty of fantastic sensory experiences that you can provide with little or no cost, and most of them are reusable!
Capitalize on Catastrophe. If you’re as lucky as I am, you have a few extra hands in your house that tend to increase the number of spills in your kitchen. I’d be lying if I said all the spills were at the hands of my children. Suffice it to say that between the four of us in our home, the floor has seen its fair share of disaster. When these spills happen in our “dry foods department” and on a large scale, I scoop them up and store them with my sensory supplies rather than throwing them out in the trash can. This is how my popcorn kernel supply began, and has also contributed to my colored rice collection. With flour and salt, I often bag them up and save them for making playdough.
My own boys love playing in colored rice! They’re not the only ones though. I had a tray of colored rice sitting on my counter one day when my friend dropped by to visit. During our conversation she began running her fingers through the grains, scooping and dumping as we talked. After a while she said, “There’s just something soothing about this stuff!” It’s true, the feel of rice sliding through your fingers, the soft rustle of it as it falls into a pile, there’s something that just captivates young and 
It’s colorful, cheap, and a little bit slimy. What’s not to love? Goopy goop, is pretty much colorful paste. Get a few of the plastic bottles they sell for hair dye. Fill them about 1/2 full of flour. Add water and food coloring or water color powder. Adjust the flour to water ratio if necessary so that the goop is thin enough to be easily squeezed out, but thick enough that you can basically write with the stream that comes out. I used it in my 
