Sunday, February 3, 2013

Fun with Colored Rice!

Some of my seriously crunchy mommy friends will probably gasp in horror that I used store bought food coloring to make this colored rice, but hey, I just don't have time to make coloring out of beets!

Our boys received a sand and water table for Christmas this year. It's finally been warm enough to be outside for more than 5 minutes, so we pulled it out recently. Now, it hasn't been warm enough to splash in water and we don't have any sand sitting around, so I needed to find something they could dig around in.

Enter colored rice, the easiest little crafty project you ever did see.

My four year old 'helped,' but I have to admit, I had way more fun doing it than he did!

My kids don't put their attention to anything for more than five minutes tops. But this rice had both of them occupied for at least 20 minutes! Long enough for me to snap about 150 pictures of them dumping it everywhere but back in to the table! It helps that they love to scoop, dump, throw, and dig. So the rice in the table was a great choice this time around.  Of course, you can do plain rice, but sometimes a little color makes things more fun!

Here's how to make some colored rice that your kids will LOVE playing in.

  • 1 large bag of white rice (I got mine at the dollar store since it was going to be used for playing and not eating!)
  • Food coloring
  • Rubbing alcohol
  • Plastic sandwich bags
  • Paper plates
Scoop some rice into the sandwich bags, then add a few drops of food coloring and a capful of rubbing alcohol. The alcohol helps spread the color around without washing it away like water would. Close the bag and shake, mush, and squish until the rice is colored. Dump on to a paper plate and set in the sun to dry out. After about 15-20 minutes, the rice should be dry and ready to play with!

Letting the rice dry for a few minutes
I poured it out all pretty-like before the littles came to mix it up!

The littlest making his discovery

Big brother burying cars, little brother scooping and pouring
Scoop and shake so it all scatters on the deck!


What fun things do you put in your kids sand and water tables? Have you made colored rice before?

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