Vibrantly Coloured Rice

Vibrantly Coloured Rice | Mama Papa Bubba

It’s no secret that we love sensory play in our house.  Like a lot.  Sadly, our recent move meant saying goodbye to many of the sensory materials that had become staples in our everyday play repertoire… (What – It doesn’t make sense to ship pounds upon pounds of coloured pasta, pea gravel, packing peanuts, dried beans, and glass gems?? Hmph.)  And so we begin again!  This week’s mission was replacing our stash of coloured rice, and did we ever!  In fact, we now have 22 pounds of vibrantly coloured rice.  

IMG 1629

While we used handsanitizer and glass jars to colour our rice last time around, this time we used white vinegar and plastic grocery bags we already had in the apartment instead.  Gracen was in charge of counting scoops of rice and putting them into the bags, while I was in charge of adding the vinegar and food colouring.

IMG 1628

For each colour, we used approximately 5 cups of rice, 1 tablespoon of white vinegar, and 2 big globs of gel food colouring (regular liquid food colouring does work, but you need quite a bit more of it and the results never seem to be quite as vibrant).  We put everything into a plastic grocery bag, tied it in a tight knot at the top, and then added another ‘just in case’ bag on top.

IMG 1631

Then we got our shake on {and oh lord – let me tell you, it takes a whole lot of shaking to colour 22 pounds of rice} and laid it all out on some flattened Ikea boxes to dry in the sunshine pouring through our windows.

IMG 1685

When the rice was dry, Grae decided she wanted it poured into a large box instead of her sensory table. The sensory table is still being occupied by her beloved sink or float station and a box works out just fine for me!  (So many boxes…)

IMG 1694

As soon as the rice had been carefully poured into our box, Grae satisfyingly sunk her hands into it and swirled the colours together.  Since then, we’ve done some simple play with cups and scoops, as well as a few larger scale treasure hunts using it too.

IMG 1689

Grae doesn’t know it yet, but I also have a brand new rice activity in the works…  Can’t wait to bust it out next week.

 

To see how to make coloured pasta, click here.

For more fun not found on the blog, join us on Facebook or follow us on Instagram.

8 thoughts on “Vibrantly Coloured Rice

  1. these look great and a good idea for a treasure hunt. what else do u think can be coloured as i dont like using so much ‘food’ for just play?

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.