How to Make a Rainbow Salt Writing Tray

A rainbow salt writing tray consists of a tray like container with a colourful rainbow base covered in salt. Using a paintbrush or their finger, your child can draw shapes, numbers, letters or words. The colourful base shows through, magically transforming their work into a rainbow of colours.

When we recently discovered the rainbow salt writing tray, we were amazed that we hadn’t heard of it before. So, after some quick research, we’ve got two different methods to teach you how to make your own rainbow salt tray for your child to play with.

Benefits of Playing with a Rainbow Salt Writing Tray

There are numerous benefits of playing with a rainbow salt tray, including:

Fine motor skills: Writing or drawing in the salt tray requires precise movements of the fingers and hands, helping to develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
Creativity and Imagination: Children can explore their creativity and imagination by drawing pictures, writing letters or numbers, or creating patterns and designs in the salt.
Colour Recognition: The use of rainbow-colours under the salt can help children learn and recognise different colours.
Calming Effect: The tactile experience of playing with the salt can have a calming effect on children, helping to reduce stress or anxiety and promote relaxation.
Sensory Stimulation: Engaging with the texture of the salt stimulates the child’s sense of touch, providing sensory input that promotes sensory processing and development.

It’s also really fun to see what magically appears from underneath the salt!

How to make a Rainbow Salt Writing Tray

Remember how we mentioned we have found two ways of making the tray:
1) the first is with a hand painted picture as the base;
2) the second is with strips of coloured paper as the base.

We like the idea of using a child’s piece of artwork as the base as it gives the child some belonging to the entire activity. For this option, you may already have a piece of artwork on hand, otherwise, have you child paint a piece of paper with a range of different colours.

What you’ll need:

a tray or large container with low sides
one of your child’s pieces of artwork or several pieces of different colour paper
sellotape
paintbrush
approximately 100gm of salt.

Inside the container, sellotape down either your child’s artwork or a rainbow of coloured strips of paper. This part is important, as you don’t want the paper to move when the child is working.

Pour the salt evenly over the paper. You may need to adjust the amount of salt depending upon the tray size. Too much salt will not let the colour show through the brushstrokes, while too little will not highlight the brushstrokes. Encourage your child to use their finger or a paintbrush to make patterns, letters or shapes in the salt.

You could also turn this into a super sensory activity by replacing the salt with sand, glitter, sprinkles, rice, shaving cream, flour or rolled oats. You can use different objects to draw in it too, such as a feather, chopstick, makeup brush and fingers.

And remember to reach for your child’s coveralls or craft apron before the fun begins to keep your child’s clothing nice and clean.

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