Rice Sensory Bin DIY

03/17/2020

Our rice sensory bin can be a bit messy but we set it up and just have a broom handy. To make this bin we got a bag of rice and wanted to dye it so it was more visible. To colour the rice you need food colouring and rubbing alcohol. You can do small batches to make rainbow coloured rice (ex: a bag of red, a bag of green, etc.) – to save time we just did 1 solid colour.

We used rubbing alcohol because the rice won’t absorb it like water. If we were to use water and dye the rice would absorb that water as well as the dye making the rice wet. By using rubbing alcohol the rice only picked up the dye, leaving the rice dry and perfect for a sensory bin.

We added the bag of rice to the dye

And then we let it sit for 2 hours (the longer you let it sit, the more dye it will absorb – so for a lighter colour you won’t let it sit for as long (about an hour) and for a deeper colour you would let it sit for 4+ hours.

Once the rice was the colour we wanted it, we drained out the rubbing alcohol and laid the rice out to dryOnce the rice was dry (a couple hours) we added it to the bin

We had enough rice so there was about 2 inches of rice along the bottom of the bin

We then added some different toys that my daughters can play with in the rice, along with a little shovel and strainer