Colored Play Rice

My daughter loves to play in dirt, sand, and really anything she can dig in.  I have seen different ideas for coloring rice and using that instead of sand.  I was able to find a 20 lb bag of rice which was more than enough!  This is easy to do but can be a little messy lol  All you need is uncooked rice, food coloring, rubbing alcohol, plastic baggy, aluminum foil, paper towel, and a cookie sheet to dry the rice on.  You will want to do this on a sunny day so you can set the rice out to dry it dries pretty fast this way.  Here are the steps to making brightly colored rice:

1. In a plastic baggy put 2 cups uncooked rice, 1/2 bottle of food coloring, and 1 1/2 Tbls rubbing alcohol.

2. Shake rice until completely coated.








(Neon Pink)











3. Line cookie sheet with foil

4. Dump rice on cookie sheet and spread out evenly.  (Use a paper towel to spread the rice so you don't get food coloring on your hands.)

5. Set outside in the sun until all rice is dry.

 (Purple...i used a full bottle on the purple and thought it was too dark.  You could use less food coloring than I used if you want light colored rice.)








6.  Have fun digging and playing in the rice!

I store the colored rice in a big tupper wear container.  Sometimes I let her play with it inside but it does get every where even if you put a towel or blanket down so most of the time she plays with it outside for easy cleanup.  She loves it and wants to play in it ALL the time lol.  One neat activity to do is to hide "small treasures" down in the rice for them to find while digging.  This can be whatever you want.  My daughter has a few small plastic hearts that fell off a hair clip that she likes to dig for in her rice.