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Colored Rice Recipe and Tutorial
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One of my daughter’s favorite things to play with is colored rice in the sensory table. All of her friends parents are forever asking me where I buy the colored rice and I have to giggle a little when I tell them that I actually make if myself. Just in case you don’t know what a sensory table is, it’s actually just like a sandbox but in a smaller container. Ours is actually kept in a Rubbermaid container but any container will work. What you want to look for when picking out a sensory table is a container that the kids can lean over and reach inside easily yet it needs to be big enough to keep most of the contents inside.

This activity can last forever. The kids love it! They love the way it feels when they reach in and touch it and it’s actually really pretty even when your colors get all mixed together. We call it rainbow colored rice at that point. Once you get your colored rice into the sensory table you can add trucks, sandbox toys, strainers, funnels or you might even want to hide some acorns inside for your little ones to find.

There are tons of uses for colored rice all you need to do is be a little creative with your thinking. It looks fabulous put in layers in glass jars and makes an excellent display. We also like to fill old water bottles with the rice (make sure the bottle is not wet inside) and add little trinkets and then we shake, rattle and roll it around to try to find all the goodies hidden inside. It’s a fun way to play eye spy perhaps at the dinner table waiting for the meal to be served. You can also use it to glue onto a piece of card stock and it make a fabulous masterpiece that your child can be very proud of!

Colored Rice Recipe and Tutorial:

Ingredients:

• Rice (I found a large bag of long grain rice at the dollar store for under $2)
• food coloring
• vinegar
• essential oil (optional but helps to keep the smell down from the vinegar)
• Large zip-lock baggies
• parchment or waxed paper
• gloves (optional)

Directions:

1. Add 2 cups rice, 1 tablespoon vinegar and food coloring (as needed*) to a zip-lock bag. One bag per color.
2. Once everything is in the bags make sure you zip them shut tight. You don’t want to end up getting food coloring all over your counters.
3. Start shaking and blending the contents around so that all the rice gets covered. If the color is to light just add more coloring.
4. Once you have the desired color of rice it is time to dry it. Take either parchment paper or waxed paper and line the inside of a pan. I use a different pan for every color that I have. A sheet pan or cake pan will work great. Spread the rice out in a thin layer to cut down drying time.
5. I actually set mine outside (espeically if it is a sunny day) and expect about an hour to dry. I ran out a few times and mixed it around so that the rice on the bottom could get dry also.

*I usually use a lot of food coloring so that I can achieve very bright colored rice. I think I used around 35 drops of food coloring to each two cups that I made. Start in increments of 10.

Once the rice is dry it is ready for your child to play with. Put it in a sensory table add some buckets and shovels and your kids will have a ball. Enjoy!

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