Sensory Play: Shapes Rice Bin

I was slacking a little with their activities. I have been feeling lethargic and they did mostly worksheets and coloring. But yesterday, Y came running to me and asked for "activity time"! I was pleasantly surprised and of course it gives me great motivation. So, I took out the Green and Red rice we colored the previous week. I had wanted to do a Christmas sensory bin but haven't got to gathering the materials. With this request, I had to whip up something fast, so I poured the rice in the bin and threw in some shapes. I like the colors! They were supposed to scoop the shapes I asked for in their respective bowls. It was a lot of fun and they moved on to explore the bin on their own for a long time.

Y, concentrating on his scooping.

He calls this "Rain"

K, mixing the rice.

It look me a while to gather the bin and the boys waited patiently for me, following me in and out of the room, looking curiously at what I'm doing, shouting "activity time" from time to time. I can never associate the word Patience with a toddler so I can see that they really wanted their "activity time". They even let me take a picture of the bin before they dashed for it. There are many times when I feel like stopping the learning activities I'm doing with them and just switch on the box. But they never fail to stop me.

Coloring Rice

Rice is a regular for our Sensory Play. Hoping to make it more interesting, we colored the rice today. There are lots of tips and recipes on coloring rice online. Here are a few by:

DLTK
E-How
Suite 101

Most of them combine rubbing alcohol or vinegar with food coloring. Again, I'm lazy, I just poured food coloring into a Ziploc bag of rice and get the boys to shake. It's not too bad. But as you can see from the pictures below, the rice is not evenly colored. I used about 1 or 2 tablespoon of food coloring to dye this small bag of rice and I think that's a lot. So, maybe you shouldn't be lazy like me if you are intending to color rice.

Green Colored Rice

Red Colored Rice

Can anyone guess the theme of upcoming Sensory Bin with this Green/Red color combination?

Sensory Rice Bin

What You Need:

• A Bin or any Container  (I use a bin that I got from Ikea but the depth is a little too deep for my 17 months old toddler. Oh well... their hands will grow longer.)
• Rice 
• Toys for Sand Play (Scoops, Shovels, Cups, etc)
• Others - You can also add things like Magnetic Letters for letter hunt, Sea Shells, Pom Poms, etc. 

Preparation:
Just fill the bin to 2-3" deep, add whatever you wish to the bin and let your kids have fun!

My boys enjoyed this Rice Bin for almost 2 hours! This amount of time spent was incredible, considering a toddler's short attention span.

 K: "Why is this thing sticking on my hand?"

K scooping the rice

Tip: Lay a plastic sheet below (if you are playing indoors) for easy clean up.

Here is Y, attempting to help me sweep up the rice.