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As a parent you hear about sensory bins and activities all the time. Some are simple collections of everyday objects, while others look like they take hours to make. And I bet they only take a few minutes for your kid to completely destroy. I found a fun recipe for rainbow rice that was very simple to make. And my kids were able to help make it, which turned it into two activities in one. Keep reading to learn how to easily dye rice and some of the fun activities we used it for.
How to Dye Rice
Materials:
- Quart sized plastic bags
- Food dye
- Rice
- White vinegar
- Parchment paper
- Paper cups (optional)
- Laminator (optional)
- Play pots and pans (optional)
Making the Rainbow Rice:
I followed A Beautiful Mess’s instructions pretty closely on how to make rainbow rice. I am going to show you how my kids and I made ours, but check out her easy to understand instructions if you need to.
First, I took a quart sized plastic bag for each color and added a decent amount of food dye to it. I used gel food dye, but liquid should work as well. I did this first to get the messy part out of the way so my kids could help from here on out. Check out other fun crafts we have done with food coloring like painting with ice.
Then, we added rice to each bag. The instructions I followed called for a cup of rice, but I wanted to make a lot of different colors. So, we used 1/4 cup of rice for each one instead. I helped my 3 1/2 year old daughter fill up the measuring cup and dump it in each bag. Next, we added 1/4 teaspoon of white vinegar to each bag.
Afterwards, my daughter, my almost 2 year old son, and I shook and rubbed each bag until we colored all the rice inside. I laid out parchment paper and I carefully poured each bag out to dry. Then, throughout the day I came and stirred it to break up clumps and help it dry evenly.
Activities With Our Rainbow Rice:
After the rice was completely dry, I placed each color in a separate container. Then, my kids got to do two fun activities with it. To start, I poured a little bit of each color into a separate paper cup for each of them. That way it didn’t matter if they mixed the colors or anything like that.
Laminated Color Activity
The first thing we did with our rainbow rice was a color matching activity. I made a fun colored alphabet sheet for my preschool daughter and colored shapes for my toddler son. I printed them off and laminated them so we could use them multiple times. My laminator has become one of my most used crafting supplies. Check out other crafts I have made with it here.
Then, I handed each kid a spoon and their paper cups full of rice. The letters on my daughter’s were too small for her to get the rice fully in the lines. But, she had fun dumping the correct color of rice on each one. She used multiple methods including a spoon, her hand, and dumping straight from the container.
Not surprisingly, my son didn’t care at all about trying to match colors and just enjoyed dumping rice. He moved it back and forth from the cups to the paper and back to the cups.
Pretend Cooking Activity
After we played for a while with our laminated sheets, the rice was all mixed up. So, I went and grabbed their pretend cooking pots and they pretended to cook with their rice. They used the pots, spoons, and paper cups to move the rice all around. It was great pouring practice especially for my son and they both had a blast. Again, they creatively used a variety of methods to move the rice wherever they wanted.
We played for a long time with the rice and left behind quite the mess. But it was an easy to clean up mess. First, we took all the rice remaining on the table and swept it into a container of its own. It was a mix of all the colors at this point. Then, all I had to do was vacuum the floor. So don’t let fear of a rice mess stop you from making and playing with this fun sensory rice.
Conclusion of Making and Playing With Rainbow Rice
Both my kids loved this activity. And the best part is we have containers of both separate and mixed together rice to play with another time. We even used our dyed rice in an alphabet craft that was also lots of fun (coming soon). The rice was easy to make and I was able to involve my kids in making it. While it was a bit of a mess it really wasn’t a big deal to clean up. I would definitely recommend trying this out with your own littles. What types of activities have your kids used their rainbow rice for?
