Ocean Tub Pretend Play

A couple weeks ago, Gresham (age 6) had the idea to put a little blue food coloring in some water to make it look like an ocean for his toy dolphins. He has quite a collection of Safari Toob animals (well, actually it’s a small collection compared to how many we have purchased. It would be a bigger collection if the dog did not view them as tasty snacks!). They are his most treasured possessions.

Here is the ocean tub that Gresham and I made! Most of this tub was his idea, and he’s very proud to share this with you all.

We used a large plastic tub and filled it with one package of aquarium rocks and three cheap aquarium plants from Petco.

Then I added real sea shells and a few drops of blue food coloring.

The dolphins had fun swimming and playing! These particular dolphins are not Safari brand – they came from Sea World. However, Safari has a whales and dolphins toob that is probably a more reasonable price, and you don’t have to go to Sea World to get it. 🙂

With the amount of food coloring we used, the water did not stain. Still, I would make this an outdoor activity, or use only a drop or two of food coloring. It doesn’t take much to get a nice effect!

Here are Gresham’s recommended Safari Toobs:

(These are Amazon Affiliate links, meaning that if you purchase through the link, I will earn a small percentage of the sale. This enables me to keep sharing activities on Frugal Fun for Boys for free!)

We also recommend buying Toobs at Hobby Lobby or Michael’s with a 40% off coupon. That seems to be the best deal!