Dyed Rice

aSp6907

My MIL bought Belle a water table for Christmas so I decided to dye some rice for it so she can use it in the winter. She loves the rice table at school so hopefully she will love it as much at home. I found a super easy recipe and the colors came out great. Thought some of you might like the recipe for your water tables that don't get much use in the winter. I know a couple of you have been building playrooms for the kiddos.

I poured 4 cups of long grain white rice into a gallon size ziploc bag. The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons food coloring. I bought a pack of neon colors and the bottles were really small so I used a whole bottle. Then add 3 tablespoons rubbing alcohol. Mix all together and then spread in a pan to dry. The directions said to lay it in the sun and it dries within 10 minutes. Since I did it last night I left it over night and it was completely dry this morning.

It took all of 20 minutes to do two colors. Like I said the colors are so bright. Thought I would share the directions! Also if you don't have a water table the blog that I found the directions on just used a plastic tote as a sensory table.

JenJar

Thanks!  Gavin just asked this morning to make him a new sensory tub. I'll try this out.

jnk062602

This isn't messy? Like rice doesn't get everywhere? I never heard of them playing in rice (but she's not in daycare so we probably miss out on lots of things like that)

abba916

ohhh thanks ...we have a rice tub now but its just white rice...I think the colors will be fun!

aSp6907

jnk062602:

This isn't messy? Like rice doesn't get everywhere? I never heard of them playing in rice (but she's not in daycare so we probably miss out on lots of things like that)

Rice can get every where. At day care they just sweep it up and put it back in the table. I plan on doing the same but we also have hardwood floors.

June4bride2be

Sounds fun! Will the dye come off on their hands? I wouldn't be able to sweep up and reuse tossed rice with all the dog/cat fur though...so it would be a semi disposable activity.

aSp6907

The dye does not come off. I dug my hands in the dried rice this morning and nothing came off. Belle plays in it all the time at school and never has dye on her hands. They are constantly changing colors and stuff too. One of the toddler rooms has Sabres colors right now.

I wonder if you could put something underneath the catch the rice when R plays with it? It is cheap and easy enough to do if you wanted to throw the fallen rice out.

TinyPinkBug

Thanks for the idea, I never thought of dying the rice!  We never do rice inside though, it gets EVERYWHERE!  Then I spend 2-3 hours cleaning it up, I don't know how it travels so far!  So rice is an outside sensory table activity.  Added to the list with bird seed and shaving cream!

JenJar

aSp6907:

I wonder if you could put something underneath the catch the rice when R plays with it? It is cheap and easy enough to do if you wanted to throw the fallen rice out.

I put a big plastic tablecloth on the floor, and put our sensory tub on top of it.  We set ground rules from the beginning that the contents of the tub stay in the tub or on the tablecloth.  The first time it went off the tablecloth, we cleaned up.  He learned quickly...