I wanted to do some Valentine’s Day activities so I decided to dye some rice for a sensory box. It took a little while to prepare and I am sure Sophie would have had just as much fun using plain white rice but I love how colourful it looks.
What you need:
- rice
- white vinegar (we only had malt vinegar which was quite smelly but not too bad once the rice dried)
- food colouring gel (I really want to invest in some of the Wilton icing gels as they give a really vibrant colour)
- Containers to mix the rice and colour
- Baking trays to dry the rice on
- Put two cups of rice and 1 tsp of vinegar into the container with the food colouring.
- Secure the lid and shake until all the rice is covered.
- Spread the rice onto a baking tray and leave it to dry overnight.
I set this activity up while Sophie wasn’t there. She was really excited to see it and got stuck right in.
She loved this activity and spent a long time scooping the rice and filling the containers.
I love how her tongue sticks out when she is really concentrating!
She really explored the foam hearts and the curled ribbon too. We hid the hearts under the rice so she had to dig to find them.
We also added some pipe cleaner hearts and used her magnetic wand and fishing rod to fish them out.
At the end, Sophie enjoyed banging the tuff spot and watching the rice ‘dance’ into the middle of the tuff spot. She climbed in and had a dance too, twirling round and round.
This activity was a massive hit. I am going to store the rice in ziplock bags and get this one out again soon.
