Recently I have been really in to creating sensory bins for Brody to play with and he has been absolutely LOVING THEM. One day he played with one for over an hour! So far I haven’t done anything too fancy, but I have plans to head to the dollar store and pick up some items to make fun themed bins to switch in and out this summer, so stay tuned for all of those.
In preparation for some of those fun themed bins I decided to create some rainbow rice and rainbow pasta. It was SO EASY. I found several recipes where people used paint to dye their rice and pasta, but Brody still has a tendency to put stuff in his mouth so I wanted to color it with something that I wouldn’t be afraid if he stuck in his mouth. Here is what you will need:
- rice and/or various pasta shapes
- vinegar
- food coloring
- plastic baggies
- wax paper
The recipe I decided to go with only used vinegar, food coloring, and pasta/rice. It might not have been as vibrant as those that used paint, but it wouldn’t hurt if he decided to eat it (which spoiler alert, that was the first thing he did). In preparation I went to Winco (they have a bulk foods area) and selected several fun shapes of pasta and the cheapest white rice I could find. Making it was super easy also!
- Add 1-2 cups of pasta of rice to a ziplock bag. I put different shapes of pasta into the same bag just for convenience.
- Add 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar and a 5ish drops of food coloring to each baggie.
- Shake until everything is covered with color.
- Line a cookie sheet with wax paper (I didn’t do this, but it would have been easier to get the pasta up if I had) and dump the pasta/rice on the tray to dry. I let my pasta and rice dry overnight, but I think it really only took 1-2 hours to dry completely.
- Dump into a container and let the kids enjoy!
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