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How To Make Rainbow Rice {Sensory Bin & Activity Ideas}

Rainbow rice is an absolute sensory heaven in many shapes and forms.

Other than the obvious of being very visually pleasing to the eye for both us adults and children, it is just as pleasing for playtime too!

As well as being a fantastic activity which will have our toddlers and kids exploring and experimenting with the rice, it also has lots of benefits which we will explain to you now:

Benefits Of Rainbow Rice Play

  • Encourages manipulation and exploration of the material.
  • Builds up fine motor skills & hand-eye coordination.
  • Uses all 5 senses, especially touch.
  • Sensory play allows for freedom to be creative and use their imagination.
  • The various colours can help teach the name.
  • Language skills can be developed whilst mummy discusses the activity points out potential new words.

How To Make Rainbow Rice

Equipment & Ingredients: 

  • White rice
  • White Vinegar
  • Liquid or gel food colouring
  • Ziplock bags
  • Trays/ cutting board

Instructions:

  1. Add 1 cup of white rice into a ziplock bag

2. Add ½ teaspoon of white vinegar (this helps for the food colouring to stick to the rice easier)

3. Add 6 teaspoons of liquid food dye OR ½ teaspoon of gel food dye

4. Close the ziplock bag & squeeze rice between fingers. Shake the ziplock bag vigorously so the food dye mixes well with the rice.

5. Open the bag and put the rice onto a tray or cutting board covered in baking paper to dry out. Repeat these instructions with each colour you would like to make.

Note: Once dried the rice can be used and stored in the ziplock bags for an eternity. 

If you still have a mouthing toddler that loves to put anything and everything in their mouth then this is TASTE SAFE. (Not very tasty but worth the piece of mind.)

Rainbow Rice Sensory Bin

Why not try a rainbow rice sensory bin where you little ones can touch, scoop, transfer, pour and see the many colours of the rainbow rice between their fingers. 

  • It can be made as simple as possible by laying the rice out separately colour by colour and allowing our curious kiddies to mix the rice together to create a multi-coloured mixture. 
  • Otherwise why not add spoons, scoops and cups so our toddlers and kids can transfer the rainbow rice from one object to another with different methods.
  • Even puzzle bases could be used to allow the spaces to be filled with rice instead of the puzzle pieces. The puzzle pieces could even be hidden amongst the rice to allow our toddlers and older ones to search for the correct pieces. 

If you have the Ikea Flisat table, the multiple sensory bins are perfect from transferring the rainbow rice from one bin to another.

My almost 22 month old loves using her little Lego models and figurines that she has collected at the moment as her imagination and creativity is improving at an incredible rate.

She saw them in her room and wanted her figurines to get involved in the sensory play too.

Check out our other super fun sensory bin activity ideas too:

Sensory Bins For 1 Year Olds

Spaghetti Sensory Bin For Babies & Toddlers

Chickpea Foam; Taste Safe Sensory Bin

Colour Sorting Sensory Bin

Rainbow Rice Activities

  • Along with the above sensory bin activities, if you are feeling extra creative you could create a rainbow shape cut out and allow the kiddies to scoop and fill the rainbow cut out with the rice. 
  • Rainbow rice is an alternative idea to teach colours and depending on your toddler/ child’s age you could ask them to scoop and sort the colours into appropriate coloured containers. 

Let us know how your little one experimented with this fabulous rainbow rice!

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