It is easy to make your own brightly coloured, neon coloured or pastel coloured rice for sensory play at home, preschool or classroom. This simple recipe for how to dye rice for sensory play can be altered to serve your specific needs.

Dye Rice for Sensory Play

Coloured rice is a great filler for sensory bins. We have used it as a base in our Ocean Sensory Bin, as well as many others. Blue coloured rice is great to use as a water base in sensory bins and bottles, while green is great for grass.

To make this fun rice, you will need:

1 cup of rice per colour
½ tsp of white vinegar, or water, or rubbing alcohol
food colouring or coloured food gel
Essential Oils, optional

Directions:

Place the rice in a resealable plastic bag.
Add the vinegar and a bit of the icing gel or food colouring. You won’t get colours that are as vibrant if you use food colouring as opposed to the gel. If you want to add essential oil, add a few drops at this point.

Seal the bag and shake well until all the rice is coloured to your desired colour.
Spread the coloured rice out on a baking tray covered with aluminium foil or baking paper to dry overnight.

Repeat with other colours.

Use in sensory play.
Store in an airtight container or a large zip lock bag and keep it a dry place. As long as it is stored properly, it should last a very long time.

Essential Oil Notes

You can choose any essential oils that you like, but make sure that the oil your use is safe for your age child. If you think that your child may try to put the rice in their mouth, try using the dietary oils such as lemon, lime and tangerine. Some essential oils shouldn’t be used around children, please do your research before adding any oils to this rice.