Wednesdays with Whitney: Colored Rice

Rainy Day Sensory Play

The wind is growling, the rain is cascading, the children are whining. What is a nanny to do after puddle jumping, spontaneous dancing, and storytelling have all been exhausted? Brighten up your stormy afternoon by making colored rice. It’s fun to make and will give grubby little fingers something to plunge into that’s not the cookie jar!

Supplies

1 Gallon Plastic Ziploc Bag
2 Cups of Uncooked Rice
2 Tablespoons of Rubbing Alcohol
Food Coloring (15-20 drops)

Directions

1. Start by letting the little ones pour in the rubbing alcohol and the food coloring into the plastic bag. Make sure they pick use their favorite color!

2. Next, let them dump in the rice. Then zip the bag closed, double checking to make sure it’s fully closed.

Add rice to coloring and alcohol

3. Here comes the fun part: crank up your favorite dancing music and let your little ones shake the bag as they dance! You can let the dancing go on for as long as the little feet want to groove.

4. Now empty out your well mixed rice onto some wax paper and let it dry (this shouldn’t take very long).

5. Once it is dry, you can make a rice bin for the youngest children, placing textured toys in it. You can also pour blue rice into a bowl to create a swimming pool for Barbies and plastic animals. Get creative – with children’s minds at play, anything is possible!

Today we start a new column on the Be the Best Nanny Newsletter blog called Wednesdays With Whitney. The author of Wednesdays With Whitney is Whitney Ziebarth graduated from Loyola University of Chicago with a degree in English. Before discovering her love of the literary arts, she was in their Premed program. Today, Whitney combines her analytical and creative side to develop engaging and educational activities to share with the toddler she works with. As the author of The Naptime Nook, Whitney also shares these activities with readers daily and is looking forward to exercising her creative muscles in the Be the Best Nanny Newsletter blog.