How to Make Rainbow Rice

How to make rainbow rice for your homemade sensory bin.

Remember my rainbow rice sensory bin from this tot school post?

Well I’m here to show you how I made it.

Chances are you have everything you need on hand already.  

That makes this a great rainy day activity and something that you can put together last minute.

You will need:

• Gallon size ziplock bags
• Food coloring (I used McCormick Assorted and Neon)
• Rubbing alcohol
• Rice

Measurements of these items will depend on the amount of rice you want to make.  I used a 1:1 ratio for the alcohol and rice.

1 tablespoon : 1 cup of rice.

I was making 2 cups of rice in each color, so I put 2 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol in my bag.

Next I added my food coloring to the alcohol and swirled it around to get the two mixed together.  

The amount of food coloring you will need depends on how intense you want the colors to be.

 I started with 3 drops, but I ended up adding more.  I used about 10 drops of coloring for each color.

Once the coloring and alcohol were mixed well, I added the rice.

 I sealed the bag, gave it a squish to get it going, and handed it to Thor to mix.  

He loved mixing it.  Squishing it.  Poking it.  Smashing it.

I gave it a final mix, just to be sure it was really mixed and all the rice was colored.  Then I poured the rice on to a cookie sheet to dry.  

I stirred it every now and then to help it dry faster.  It took a couple hours to get good and dry.

When it was dry I added it to my sensory bin.  I bought a 15 gallon box with a lid from Target for around $5.

In case you are wondering about the colors, I used blue, green, and purple from the McCormick Neon box and red from the McCormick assorted.  

Yes, that pink row is made with red.  

I probably could have gotten it darker if I added more red, but it was the color that I added the most coloring to.

The McCormick boxes also have formulas for how to achieve different colors.  

So that might be something to try as well.  I went with the egg dying formula for apricot.  

I doubled it though since I knew I was going to want around 10 drops.

Apricot is not pictured in the bin because I decided that I wanted more rice in it after Thor had played with it a couple of times.  So apricot was made separately.

I know that some people have said that their rice always smells like alcohol.  This is not my experience.  

Once it was dry, there was no longer any alcohol smell.  There still isn’t and it sits in a closed box while it’s not in use.

You can also use vinegar instead of rubbing alcohol.  

I have heard that makes the colors more intense, but I have not tried it myself.  Maybe for the next batch.

I put some stuff into the box and let Thor do his thing.  It wasn’t long before it was all mixed together.

For more fun ideas check out my Pinterest.