If you’re looking for a safe way to incorporate messy materials into play with the under-one-year-old set, then gallon-sized plastic bags are your perfect solution. To wit, Veronika has “painted” in a plastic bag, and today we used baby oil for a fun sensory experience.

Pour some baby oil into the bag. Add a few blobs of food coloring.

I went with a blue theme simply because that was what I had on hand, and added blue buttons and blue pony beads as well.

Now all she had to do was squish! The food coloring is fun, because your baby can chase the blobs around in the baby oil, much like blobs in a lava lamp.

If your baby is as hands-on as Veronika, you’re going to want to duct tape along the sealed closure for extra security.

It was also helpful to duct tape the bag to the floor, because this focused her play on squishing items around within the bag, instead of picking up the whole bag and smooshing it in her hands.

What hands-on fun for a weekend morning!