A Patriotic Sensory Bin

I had a huge bag of white rice in my cabinet, and since we only eat brown rice, I decided to dye it for use in a sensory bin!  I dyed a third of the rice red and a third of the rice blue, and left the rest white.  If you have never dyed rice before, it is simple and you can use it in a sensory bin or for crafts (we are planning to use some of the rice for crafts). 

This is how you do it:

• put the desired amount of uncooked rice in a container with a lid or in a ziploc bag
• add vinegar to the bag (I used about 1/4 cup for every 2 cups of rice), (you can use rubbing alcohol instead of vinegar, whatever you have on hand)
• add food coloring (we put in about 10 drops for every 2 cups of rice)
• shake, shake, shake until all of the rice is colored
• pour it out to dry (we dried ours in the cover of a copy paper box); make sure you dry different colors separately so the colors don't run onto each other
• once dry, mix it all together and play
• Don't forget to lay a tablecloth or an old sheet under your bin to make clean up easier (we have an ice cream cone tablecloth that I was saving for this purpose, and of course I forgot to put it down before play began!)

I added red, white, and blue star beads to our bin to make it even more festive. 

C and R pretended it was ice cream.  They used a few plastic ice cream scoops, measuring spoons, plastic ice cream cones from a Melissa and Doug beach toy, a few plastic cups, and a parmesan cheese container to shake sprinkles out onto the ice cream. 

This ice cream shop has been very busy, and the best thing about this patriotic ice cream is that it doesn't melt!