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How to Make Jello Eyeballs – an Easy Sensory Bin

Learn how to make a Jello Eyeballs Sensory Bin, an easy and spooky play idea for Halloween. This sensory play activity is taste-safe and suitable for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. Your kids will love watching the eyes jiggle around as they play.

If you want to make your Halloween themed lessons a breeze, then check out the Halloween Activity Pack. For only $10 you get 86 pages of hands-on activities and craft templates that are perfect for math and literacy centers, fine motor skills and more. Check it out today.

Learn how to make a Jello Eyeballs Sensory Bin for Halloween. This taste-safe sensory activity is perfect for babies, toddlers and preschoolers.

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Sensory Activities for Halloween

Halloween is right around the corner and here are some spooky sensory activities for kids.

One of my favorite Halloween Sensory Bins is this Witches Potion Sensory Bin. It’s easy to make the bubble foam and the kids love to brew their own bubbly potion using eyeballs, spiders, and more spooky things.

However, if you want a taste-safe sensory activity then try this Halloween spaghetti sensory bin instead. Making it is as easy as putting a pot on the stove and the wriggly spaghetti reminds me of worms.

Another idea is this Skeleton Sensory Activity. You can use it for Halloween or to learn about the human body. Perfect for any preschool or kindergarten classroom sensory or science centers.

For more ideas, check out this list of 26 Sensory Activities for Halloween

Materials Needed

  1. Jello – any color you want
  2. Eyeball mold *
  3. Googly eyes
  4. Spray oil

* You can use a lot of different things as a mold for the eyeballs. I used a fridge container for eggs. You can also use plastic Easter eggs or baking molds if you have them.

How to Make Jello Eyeballs

Step 1: Spray the inside of your mold with oil.

This will ensure that your jello doesn’t stick to the side of the mold when it has been set. It creates a barrier that will allow the eyeballs to be removed from the mold really easily.

2. Make your jello according to package directions.

Related: Halloween Sensory Bin – Fireflies and Mudpies

3. Pour the jello into the mold.

If you want to, you can add some food coloring into some of the sections. This will let you have various colors of eyeballs to play with.

4. Let your eyeballs set in the fridge overnight.

5. Remove the eyeballs from the mold.

I found that my eyeballs slipped out quite easily, but if I had a stubborn one then I just used a teaspoon to scoop it out. If you are gentle with the teaspoon then it won’t break the eyeball at all.

6. Place your googly eyes on top of the eyeballs.

Related: Halloween Spider Sensory Rice Bin – My Bored Toddler

Use milk instead?

I experimented with this method and tried making eyeballs using milk. I wanted to use orange jello to look like the iris, milk to look like the whites of the eye, and a raisin in the middle to look like the pupil.

To set the milk I added in 2 tsp of gelatine powder mixed with a tbsp of boiling water, into a cup of milk. This worked perfectly and the milk set just like I wanted it to.

I made these eyeballs in layers, first I let the jello set, then I went back and added the milk later and then let that set too.

What went wrong

  1. The jello and the milk had a different amount of gelatin in them. This means that they had different levels of… bounciness is the only word that I can think of right now.

    This isn’t really an issue until you try to remove the eyeball from the mold. Since the jello wasn’t as dense as the milk, the two layers separated if I wasn’t careful enough when scooping them out of the mold.

    To fix this I wouldn’t use jello next time. Intead I would mix it up with gelatine powder and food coloring instead.


  2. I chose orange jello for the iris – this just made them look like eggs.

    Again, this isn’t a big deal. They just didn’t look like I wanted them too. Next time I think I’ll try purple jello so that they look more like monster eyeballs and less like boiled eggs.

I was disappointed with how these eyeballs came out. The effect they have isn’t worth the extra time I spent making them.

If you know how to make these better than I did, I would love to see them. But for me, next time I’ll just stick to the jello and googly eyes instead. The first method was so much easier and created much better results.

Are you going to try this jello eyeballs sensory bin with your kids?

Don’t forget to Pin the idea for later.

Learn how to make a Jello Eyeballs Sensory Bin for Halloween. This taste-safe sensory activity is perfect for babies, toddlers and preschoolers.

Printable Halloween Activity Pack for kids. Math, literacy, fine motor, games and craft templates for preschool and kindergarten.

Halloween Activity Pack

86 Pages of Halloween themed play based learning activities. Perfect for preschool and kindergarteners.