I’ve seen lots of great ocean sensory tubs online (mostly thanks to Pinterest), including the ones at these blogs:
My ocean tub ideas came partly from some of those ideas and partly from seeing what I had on hand. Here’s our ocean tub as it looked when I first put it together:
Our tub includes:
Blue fish aquarium rock
Plastic palm trees from other play sets
Lots of seashells (some found, some bought)
Sea glass that we found at a beach
Plastic tube of sea animals (bought at a pound store)
Sun & Sand Yankee Candle (for a nice “beach” scent)
A few small clear plastic (almost glass-like) dolphins and shells I bought in London
I later added this sea turtle that I found at a charity shop (it has a bead maze on the back):
Here’s Gabriela playing with it. I don’t think I have a picture, but Isaac turned the candle into a sandy island with palm trees—it was pretty cool.
After a week of Gabriela playing with the tub this way, I decided to try it with water the next week. All 3 of the kids loved this. Unfortunately, it was too chilly to take it outdoors (I had hoped for a beautiful September), so I put it in the kitchen with beach towels spread on the floor. Adding the water made this sensory the tub the one Gabriela has played with the most! For additional fun, we added a small fish net. 
Results of adding water to this tub?
1. SHE loved it!
2. MOM did NOT enjoy cleaning it!
After just a few days, the water started looking yucky (of course). It took no small amount of time to dump out the water and clean everything up. I decided not to add water again…too much work for this mom! Now I remember why I do not keep fish for pets!! Ah, well, it was worth doing once—just for Gabriela’s enjoyment!
I'm linking this post to "Sensory Tub Ideas" at Our Worldwide Classroom.
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