The other day we were making a batch of coloured rice to use for some measuring fun so I thought I'd share the details of how we made it in case you'd like to know.
It's very easy to do and you can colour it in a whole rainbow of colours for fun and interesting play and learning.
Materials: White rice, White vinegar, Food Colouring
(I have seen other people use an alcohol instead of the vinegar or even. just water.
I use the vinegar because it helps to spread the colour evenly whilst also sterilizing
and hopefully preserving the rice so we can get extended use out of it.)
Directions
Pour some vinegar into a bowl (or plastic ziplock bag) and add your food colouring.
You can use up to 1 tablespoon of vinegar per cup of rice.
Add as much colour as you'd like to get your desired colour.
Hint: I made 4 cups of rice so I used 4 tblsps of vinegar.
I could have gotten away with using a little less though.
Add your rice to the bowl (or plastic ziplock bag) and stir (shake) until all the rice is evenly coloured
I lined my trays with foil and then spread out the rice for it to dry.
(I'm always tempted to use towelling paper to speed up the drying process but I'm sure that the rice would stick to it!)
How long your rice takes to dry depends on a number of factors.
How wet you made your rice, how thinly the rice is spread and the temperature/conditions under which the rice is drying.
Hint: If your rice is very important for an activity I would suggest making it the night before
so you are sure you will have nice dry coloured rice.
Despite it being a damp day, our rice took only a couple of hours to completely dry on the trays sitting in the kitchen.
Now your coloured rice is ready for play!
Enjoy!
Have a look at how we used this rice for some Playful Maths
(Click the picture to go to the post)
Happy playing,
Debs :)
Look where else we are. Are you following along? :)
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