We love a good rainbow-colored sensory activity around here, so for Lila’s birthday we made rainbow rice. I’d read about people dyeing rice with food coloring and rubbing alcohol, but it wasn’t until I saw this post about using liquid water color paint that it really appealed to me – I’ve wanted an excuse to buy the paints for awhile now, there are so many fun things to do with them. So Lila got the tropical set and some droppers for her birthday and we got to work.
First she administered a few droppers full of paint into a ziploc bag with three or four cups of rice,
then she shook it up. Serious business, as you can see.
The rice was dry almost immediately and ready to pour into the tub.
We dumped each color in separately, but I had to shoot rapid fire to get any photos of it in this state, because the urge to mix it all together was apparently very intense.
Pretty soon it looked like this:
A tub of sprinkles! Sprinkle rice, sprinkle dress.
She didn’t waste much time taking off her socks and hopping inside the tub, either.
The verdict is: Rice = fun. Rice that resembles sprinkles = even more fun.
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Whaaaaa? How awesome is this?! Love it. My kids would definitely love it too. Wonder if they’d have those paints at Learning Palace or something…?
Cute post. Looks like a lot of fun ; )
Fantastic! That apron she’s wearing looks far too nice to spoil with dye too!
Wow! LOVE this! Definitely trying it – maybe for my son’s upcoming birthday party! Thanks for sharing this awesome activity!!
Looks sooo fun! The rice pre-mixing looks gorgeous (but who could resist?). I want to get those paints too! They are so much nicer than the old school watercolors in a box.
Oh man that looks like fun. I know C would love to make something like that. Where did you find the paint?
she’d love it! i ordered it from discount school supply, there’s a link to the set we got in the post!
Those paints look fabulous! And the rice is so pretty and could provide endless hours of fun — awesome!
What amazing fun x
Get some travel spray bottles, the kind they sell at Target for $1. Fill with water and add a little of the liquid watercolor. What do you get? Snow paint! We finally got to use it a couple weeks back during winter’s last (we hope!) gasp. The snowman was awesome. ;o)
Coincidentally, I dyed pasta for Lilah’s bday party this year too, but used the rubbing alcohol technique. Smelly! Would have much preferred your technique, and you got great results! Love the sprinkles theme:)