Coloured Rice and Pasta

We've been a bit poorly at our house this week. Well more Aarahi than anyone else. We have been blessed with generally healthy kids, neither of them have ever been sick enough to warrant a trip to visit the doctors. Actually I'm the only one that has had to visit the doctor in the past 3 years and that was only because I was pregnant. I don't know what we do to get healthy kids...they sure don't eat organic and healthy food. Auron has drunk so much juice that he calls any drink "juice" I think we just struck it lucky, or we are just tough?

The last two days we have had a family nap, often not intentionally. We just seem to all fall asleep and wake up at dinner time. That's what happened yesterday then we had no food (ok we had food but nothing we wanted to eat) so we had to go do the groceries at 7pm at night. Nothing like shopping with hungry kids. Auron always makes a beeline to the confectionery aisle. He likes Mentos...because they come in long rolls and are colourful. I like them because they take him ages to open and eat. Like I said "not healthy" It may or may not have been his second packet of the day......

Today we got out our coloured rice we made last year. Auron loves to dig in it and find the little plastic animals we hid in it. It can get kind of messy but it vacuums up easy enough. We usually wait for Lili to have her nap before we do this.

I also made coloured pasta which we use to practice our sorting and counting. Lili often gets these and tries to eat them. I can always tell because her face is covered in food colouring that has seeped off the pasta while it's been in her mouth. So far it hasn't done her any damage. No matter how well I try to clean up she always finds things to put in her mouth. At the moment it's buttons. Auron had been playing with them and I was sure I had picked them all up but every time I turn around shes putting one in her mouth. I think she has a secret stash somewhere.

Here's how we did it

Rice

Rubbing Alcohol or white vinegar

Food colouring, the liquid kind

Ziplock bags

Newspaper

Put rice in ziploc bag

Add 1TBS of alcohol for each cup of rice

Add 2TBS of food colouring...or however much it takes to get the colour you want

Close the bag and squish shake and rub to get the colour mixed through

Spread rice out on newspaper and leave to dry for an hour or so

Pasta works the same way but you may need to add more alcohol and colouring. 

We made 3 different colours. Auron loved to mix them together. We made our batch about a year ago now and its still good. This is a great addition to your sensory play.