Rice Sensory Bin for Toddlers

Earlier this week I shared our bubble water sensory bin, and today I’m excited to share our rice sensory bin!

I will warn you this one is just as messy if not messier than the water bin! Let’s just say we had rice all over the kitchen floor!

This sensory bin took 24 hours to prep before Graysie could play with it since we colored the rice. I’ll share those details below!

I want to be sure to share some objectives I think Graysie learns while playing with sensory bins. Our children’s minds are working at a fast pace and continually learning and soaking in the world around them. Giving them the opportunity to play with sensory bins allows them to focus and concentrate on that specific activity. For the rice bin I gave Graysie a kids plastic shovel, two of her play kitchen pans and a small bucket. She loved using the shovel to scoop up rice and put in the bucket and pans. Although she wanted to pour the rice in the bucket outside the bin, she was very focused and worked hard to fill the bucket with as much rice as she could. I am okay with the mess, it was an easy sweep clean up.

We colored the rice this is a great way to talk about colors and have kids tell you the colors. We put the colors in side by side and as she began playing they got mixed together in a neat confetti rainbow.

For older toddlers this would be a great way to story tell and explain how once you mix separate items that are so small they can’t easily be separated again back to their original pile of colors. There’s a variety of ways this could be discussed.

Sensory bins as mentioned in my previous post are an excellent way to help young children with their senses. Touching the rice and feeling the texture can help them differentiate between soft and hard items.

If you have small plastic toys such as dinosaurs. You could hide them in the rice and have kids search for them in the rice. This is an excellent way for them to use their minds and search for items in the bin.

There are truly endless opportunities you can create when putting together sensory bins.

Supplies you will need:

Plastic Tub

Rice

Food Coloring

White Distilled Vinegar

Plastic Bags

I bought my tubs and rice at Walmart. I bought a 10lb bag of rice for under $5 and two plastic tubs for under $7.

I originally started with quart bags but ended up needing to dump the rice in gallon bags to get the rice and food coloring to mix well.

I put 5 cups of rice into 4 bags. I had four colors of food coloring. You can do as many colors as you’d like. Or you don’t even have to color the rice at all. I liked the idea of colorful rice.

To the 5 cups of rice I added 2 tablespoons of white vinegar and 30 squirts of food coloring to each bag. You can add more or less depending on how vibrant you want the color.

Seal the bags and shake up the bag until the food coloring is evenly distributed over all the rice.

Open the bag and let them sit out over night so the vinegar and food coloring has a chance to dry. Once they are dry you won’t have to worry about stained hands!