Colored Rice

I have been the "sick-in-bed mom" for too many weeks! It is time to get moving and creating again at our house! I have decided to pull a few tricks out of my bag and have a little fun with what is left of the summer. If you are running low on ideas at your house, feel free to use some of mine! None of them are original. I have found all of them in books, from co-workers, online, or in school. I hope you enjoy the last few weeks of summer at your house!

First up: Colored Rice. You can color just about anything with a little liquid food coloring and some rubbing alcohol ... rice, pasta, bird seed, tapioca ... any or all of these are perfect in a sensory table with some spoons and bowls.

We used 2 cups of rice in each zippy and 2 Tablespoons of rubbing alcohol with a little squirt of food coloring. Close up the bag and let your munchkin shake SHAKE shake!

(We added two bags of tapioca after we finished the rice so we would have a few extra colors.)

Once the rice looks "beautiful" as Larkin says, you set it out on a tray and let it dry out. The rubbing alcohol will evaporate and the color will stick. We set ours out in the sun so it would dry a little faster.

(I always mess with my pictures a little before I post them, but I left this one alone so you could see how vibrant the rice can be. It's the rubbing alcohol that makes the colors so bright! Once it evaporates the rice dulls and little.)

Larkin loves to cook so we set her up with lots of bowls and spoons and spatulas to cook up a storm. We poured in all the colors of rice and tapioca into a bucket and let Larkin mix them all together.

Such fun!

Next up on our list of fun things to do ... "clean mud", homemade finger paints, and the Song Can!