Making coloured rice is a really easy (and cheap) activity – and great for some sensory play afterwards!
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To prepare the activity, I put some white rice into some resealable bags – I used about two handfuls for each colour. Then I dropped in some food dye, sealed the bag, and mixed it all around. The aim is to try and spread the dye evenly, adding more drops if necessary.
Children can help with this stage – as long as they can either understand the instruction NOT to open the bags or they CAN’T open them. F falls right between these two phases; he was utterly obsessed with opening the bags, and not interested in colouring the rice at all.
Once all the rice is coloured (and you can do as many different colours as you like), spread the rice out in a container. Unlike when I dyed the cooked spaghetti, the rice doesn’t absorb the dye so fast, and benefits from drying out a little. But it is not too bad if you want to use it straight away.
The next day I gave the coloured rice to F in one dish, separated out into different colours. I also gave him some craft sticks to swirl the rice around. He enjoyed slowly mixing up all the colours.
I also gave him a spoon so that he could scoop the rice.
Of course he got all the colours mixed up, which was to be expected. But the rice still looked super pretty. And it’ll keep indefinitely for future play!
Looks great!
But didn’t he throw some on the floor? Whenever I give my 1.5-year-old those sorts of things, he makes sure that at some point-EVERYTHING is out of the container and on the floor…any ideas how to avoit that?
Thanx
Some spilled onto the floor when he was mixing and stirring but I was ready for that. He hasn’t discovered the “joy” of dumping it on the floor yet! Perhaps you could try a bigger and/or deeper container?
I put a large dark colored blanket under the grandkids. So, this way I can see where the rice falls. Then pick up the blanket, so all the rice can be picked up, and not it’s not in the carpet.
That’s an awesome idea!
This might be a stupid question but wouldn’t the rice stick together? Is there ways to prevent this??
Actually no it didn’t all stick together although it did need a bit of drying time between colouring and playing.
brilliant idea!! Is this rice cooked?
No it is uncooked rice. If you like this then please check out my friend Nicolette’s ebook Rice Play! http://www.powerfulmothering.com/color-rice-play-ebook/
What a wonderful idea! I’m working on a post for Christmas and was looking for a replacement for sand. I linked to you in the post ( not yet published.) I hope you don’t mind?
Sure, thanks for checking!