Easy Valentine’s Sensory Rice Activity for Kids

Close-up of a cardboard heart with a letter slot surrounded by pink Valentine’s sensory rice at a kids sensory table.

A simple Valentine’s sensory rice activity for kids that mixes scooping, letter hunting, and a fun feed-the-heart game for playful learning.

A Simple Valentine’s Day Sensory Play Idea for Kids

A Valentine’s sensory rice activity is one of those setups that looks simple on the table but keeps kids engaged far longer than you’d expect. Pink rice invites scooping, pouring, and digging, while hidden letters add a little challenge and purpose to the play. We took it a step further by “hacking” our sensory bin with a cardboard heart so my daughter could feed it the letters she found.

That small twist turned open-ended sensory play into a hands-on letter matching game that felt playful, not like a lesson. This kind of activity works beautifully for toddlers and preschoolers, it’s quick to set up, and it blends fine motor practice with early literacy in a way that feels natural for kids.

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What You’ll Need

Valentine’s sensory rice
Plastic or wooden letters (numbers work too!)
A heart drawing or this ready-made printable
Cardboard
A sensory table or large bin
Hear Shaped scoops and cups, small buckets

How to set up this Valentine’s sensory rice activity

Fill one side of your table with Valentine’s sensory rice.
Hide letters throughout the rice.
Make a cardboard heart with 2 small slots underneath.
Create a strip of letters and run it through the slots under the heart.
Place the heart on the empty side of the table.
Invite your child to dig for letters and feed them into the heart.

What You’ll Need

Valentine’s sensory rice
Plastic or wooden letters (numbers work too!)
A heart drawing or this ready-made printable
Cardboard
A sensory table or large bin
Hear Shaped scoops and cups, small buckets

How to set up this Valentine’s sensory rice activity

Fill one side of your table with Valentine’s sensory rice.
Hide letters throughout the rice.
Make a cardboard heart with 2 small slots underneath.
Create a strip of letters and run it through the slots under the heart.
Place the heart on the empty side of the table.
Invite your child to dig for letters and feed them into the heart.

Why this activity works so well

This supports:

Fine motor skills
Letter recognition
Hand-eye coordination
Focus and independence
Sensory exploration

It looks playful, but it’s sneaking in real learning in a very natural way!

Child placing a plastic letter into a cardboard heart during a Valentine’s sensory rice activity at a sensory table.

Pink, red, and white Valentine sensory play rice in a 2 lb resealable bag from 7 Days of Play for kids sensory bins

About our Valentine’s sensory rice

After the hearts are made, keep the Valentine fun going with a simple sensory activity kids love.

We used our own Valentine’s sensory rice for this setup because it’s lightweight, non-toxic, and super vibrant. The colors make letter hunting more fun, and the texture is perfect for scooping, pouring, and sensory play. Parents love that it’s reusable, easy to store, and works for tons of different activities beyond Valentine’s Day.

👉 Shop the Valentine Sensory Play Rice to complete your Valentine setup.

SHOP HERE

About our Valentine’s sensory rice

After the hearts are made, keep the Valentine fun going with a simple sensory activity kids love.

We used our own Valentine’s sensory rice for this setup because it’s lightweight, non-toxic, and super vibrant. The colors make letter hunting more fun, and the texture is perfect for scooping, pouring, and sensory play. Parents love that it’s reusable, easy to store, and works for tons of different activities beyond Valentine’s Day.

👉 Shop the Valentine Sensory Play Rice to complete your Valentine setup.

SHOP HERE

Make it easy with our printable heart + letter strip

Instead of drawing your own heart and writing your own letters, you can use our printable version, which does the same thing with much less prep.

The printable includes a heart, letter strip, and number strip. You simply tape the heart to a box, tray, or like we did with our sensory table. As your child finds a letter in the rice, they pull the strip to reveal the next letter to look for.

It keeps the playful “feed the heart” idea intact, but makes setup faster, cleaner, and easier to repeat again next year.

👉 Download the printable heart and letter strip here.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Child using a small scoop to transfer pink Valentine’s sensory rice into clear cups at a sensory table.

Why a sensory table makes this activity easier

You can absolutely do this in a bin or on a tray, but a sensory table makes everything better. Our foldable table keeps the rice contained, is the perfect height for toddlers and preschoolers, and stores flat when you’re done. That means you can leave a setup out for days instead of cleaning it up every night.

👉 See our foldable sensory table here

SHOP HERE

Foldable sensory table for kids from 7 Days of Play with removable bins and foldable wooden legs

Why a sensory table makes this activity easier

You can absolutely do this in a bin or on a tray, but a sensory table makes everything better. Our foldable table keeps the rice contained, is the perfect height for toddlers and preschoolers, and stores flat when you’re done. That means you can leave a setup out for days instead of cleaning it up every night.

👉 See our foldable sensory table here.

SHOP HERE

Overhead view of a Valentine’s sensory rice activity on a foldable kids sensory table with pink rice, scoops, cups, and a cardboard heart letter feeder.

Bringing it all together

This Valentine’s sensory rice activity is the kind of setup that feels festive, thoughtful, and actually doable for real life. With a little rice, a simple heart, and a place to play, you’re giving your child permission to slow down, explore, and learn through their hands instead of rushing from one craft to the next. Whether they play for five minutes or fifty, they’re practicing focus, coordination, and confidence in a way that feels totally natural and kid-led.

If you want to mix things up after the first round, here are a few easy ways to keep the play fresh:

Color sort after the hunt. Once all the letters are found, invite your child to scoop each color into matching cups.
Uppercase meets lowercase. Hide both versions of each letter and ask kids to make pairs.
Word building. Swap letters for simple CVC words and have kids “feed” the heart each word in order.
Number version. Replace letters with numbers and turn it into a counting or matching game.

However you play, this setup is one you can return to again and again with small twists that keep it interesting for kids and easy for you.