Colored Rice

I have seen this many times but always sat and wondered is this something I really want to do. How messy is it going to be to make and then what kind of mess will my kids make out of it in the end that I will have to clean up? Putting those thoughts aside I decided the experience and the things Dylan will get out of it for school are much more important. So this weekend I went ahead and bought a 20 pound bag of white rice. Yes I am sure people at Wal-Mart thought I was crazy and wondering if I thought there was going to be a famine of some sorts soon. I grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and gallon size Ziplocs as well. Then headed to Hobby Lobby to get some of the good food colorings as I wanted some pretty bright colors.

I have no actual recipe to this experience as I basically squeezed the bottle of alcohol three times. Squeezed the food coloring four times and added four to five cups of rice at a time. I did this process two times per color as I had a ton of rice to cover. I mixed it all together in the Ziploc bag and shook it like crazy! Note to self make sure you zip them closed or you may end up with rice everywhere. Luckily I caught myself before I had food coloring everywhere. Once you have all the rice covered from shaking, you lay it out on a pan or like I did on paper towels and it dries pretty quick.

Then I just added it to some shoebox sized totes that I had. And I will pull it out when it is Sensory bin time.

The end process was great and it wasn’t messy at all to make as long as you can keep the kids out of it as you are making it.

Now I have to decide if I am going to mix it all together or use the rice over several sensory bins over the next year.