Are you looking for an easy-to-set-up activity to engage your children in sensory play? Look no further than coloured rice! With just a few supplies and some creative thinking, you can create a vibrant and textured material that children will love.
Coloured rice is a great resource to let children play with as it lets them explore freely whilst providing hours of endless fun! Once your children are done, the coloured rice can be stored in a resealable plastic bag and reused!
In this blog post, we cover how to dye rice for sensory play. This step-by-step guide will show you how to make coloured rice as well as inform you of tips and tricks to make the process smoother. We’ll also give you some creative ways to use coloured rice during sensory play, ranging from sensory bins to rainbow art projects.
DIY Coloured Rice
Supplies needed
- 1 cup white rice per colour
- ½ tsp vinegar per colour – child-friendly alternative to rubbing alcohol
- Food colouring gel or tempera paint
- Food container / resealable plastic bag
- Essential oils
- Long-grain white rice
Instructions
- Put 1 cup of rice in a resealable bag
- Add in ½ tsp of vinegar and some food colouring. You can also add essential oils to add an olfactory sensory experience to the dyed rice. The more food colouring you add, the deeper the colour!
- Seal up the plastic bag or container and shake it well
- Repeat this step until you have different colours of rice
- Spread the coloured rice on a backing tray to dry overnight
Tip: To help the rice dry faster, cover the baking tray with a kitchen towel.
Ways to use coloured rice in sensory play
- Use the coloured rice as a sensory bin filler
- Put them into sensory bins. Then add in other sensory items like children’s toys, loose parts and scoops to create an open-ended rice bin.
- Put coloured rice in a plastic bottle along with some small toys, buttons and loose parts. Then get your children to spot the small resources within the rice bottle.
- Get your children to stick the multicoloured rice onto a rainbow template and create all the colours of the rainbow using rice!
- Let your children fill up a see-through jar and let them layer the different coloured rice on top of each other to create a rainbow jar.
- Use the coloured rice as a base for children to stick their fingers in and mark making. Let them create shapes, form letters and feel new textures whilst developing their fine motor skills.
Conclusion:
This guide on how to dye rice for sensory play has shown you an easy and cost-effective way to create a fun and engaging sensory activity for children.
By combining a few household ingredients and supplies like white rice, vinegar, food colour and essential oils, you can create a variety of colourful and fragrant rice for children to play with.
The possibilities with coloured rice are endless! Use them to fill up sensory bins, decorate rainbow templates or just use them as a base material for mark-making activities!
So go ahead, try this simple and enjoyable activity with your kids and watch them explore and create with their newfound colourful sensory play material.
Looking to learn more about sensory play in the early years? Read our blog post which covers everything you need to know about sensory play in the early years!
We would love to see how you get on with your dyed rice! Share your pictures with us on social media by tagging us or using the hashtag #ExploreWithEYR
