coloured rice

There's a bit of talk recently about using food for play, I can see both sides of the debate so from now on will be more aware of how often we use ingredients like rice, salt and flour for play. A few months ago I made coloured rice for a ' finding bottle' similar to the blue and yellow one pictured. To make it, put white rice in zip lock bags, add food colouring, shake to colour and then pour the rice out onto a tray lined with paper towels to dry ( I put ours up in the hot water cupboard).  I had a small amount of left over rice so thought we'd use it for play today. M and T enjoyed it with their tea set using it as sugar- there was a bit of a mess but it was easily vacuumed up later ( which they also liked doing).

Here's some more ideas:

our rice

glued on to card

finding jars- see if the kids can find the things you name. I like the use of baby food jars.

pretty 'playscapes'

using it with our tea set as 'sugar'

with a spoon and funnel- fun!

another 'finding' activity but in a bag

finding in a large clear bottle

art works ( just sprinkled on a surface to be re used another time)

Here's a link to how to make colourful and edible rice ( obviously not after being played with!)  http://justbento.com