had so much fun with our strawberry scented sensory rice that my daughter wanted me to make more in all
different colors. Now we have a bucket of rainbow rice to play with whenever we
feel like (it stays good for a long time). I love this method for making
rainbow rice because it’s so easy (even when you are making 6 batches), the
colors turn out bright, and the rice smells so good making it extra fun to play
with. This recipe doesn’t call for alcohol (so no gross smell) or any other
weird ingredient, keeping the rice a taste-safe sensory play activity (one of our favorite ways to play around here).
Some fun things we have done
with our rice is put small toys, letters, or numbers in it and played a hide
and seek type game. This works great for my toddler and preschooler; they can
do the same activity at their own skill level. I also let them play and explore
with our rice by putting some in a bin with scoops, cups, and funnels. Eventually trucks and Shopkins usually end up inside too (my
kiddos favorite things).
with our rice is put small toys, letters, or numbers in it and played a hide
and seek type game. This works great for my toddler and preschooler; they can
do the same activity at their own skill level. I also let them play and explore
with our rice by putting some in a bin with scoops, cups, and funnels. Eventually trucks and Shopkins usually end up inside too (my
kiddos favorite things).
Rainbow Rice Sensory Play Recipe
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Supplies:
1 tsp. of powdered Kool-aid (When shopping for your Kool-aid packets, look at the color of drink in the pitcher to know what color the Kool-aid is inside. I was bummed out when tropical punch in the blue box turned out to be red inside).
- Lemonade-Yellow and Orange rice
- Grape-Purple rice
- Cherry-Red rice
- Lemon Lime-Green and Blue rice
1 C. uncooked rice1 T. water
Food coloring
Directions:
1. Make one color at a time by mixing the Kool-aid, rice, water, and food coloring in a bag or container until the rice is fully coated (my kids love shaking the bags to mix the rice). Set the rice out to dry and occasionally mix it up so the bottom can dry too (I opened our bags and set them on the counter and would give them a little shake now and again). It took ours a couple hours, then it was ready to play with.
Since blue Kool-aid doesn’t exist, I used a little Lemon lime flavoring and blue food coloring to make our blue sensory rice so it still smells good, but is the right color.
For orange I used the yellow colored Kool-aid and added orange food coloring.
For green I used the yellow colored Kool-aid and added green food coloring.
More Fun Sensory Play Activities To Try
Have a great day!
Love, Katie & the Kiddos
Great way to color rice! My son would love that it smells so good. I am going to try this soon.
Hi Danielle, Thanks so much! My kids think the "smell good" rice is awesome, I hope your son enjoys it just as much 🙂
Berry Blue and Ice Blue Raspberry are awesome blue kool-aid flavors 🙂
Hi, and if you can't use kool aid? I live in south america and we don't have that here, and I don't think there are similar products, would it be enough with the food coloring? And what is the T of water stand for? a tablespoon? I assume the 1 C rice means 1 cup? Could someone please explain that? Thank you!!
Hi Malena, You could do this without the kool aid, it just wouldn't have the fruity smell. You are also correct, the T stands for tablespoon and the C is for cup. I will try and remember to right it out next time. Thanks for the questions. Let me know if I can help further 🙂
Is this rice sticky at all or will the hands stay clean?