Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Colored Rice

This fun project is thanks to Teach Preschool.  I am trying to do more art lessons and incorporate more time for the kids to create in our curriculum; I am finding it can be kind of stifling sometimes.   (We follow The Well Trained Mind mostly.)  Of course my plans rarely turn out exactly the way I hope... so is the case with this colored rice project :)

I *loved* the idea of using Kool-Aid instead of food coloring and vinegar (less gross odor).  So we followed the directions... we placed 2 cups of rice in a zip top bag, in a small measuring cup we put one package of Kool-Aid and 1/2 T warm water; mix well, add to rice and mush the rice around until it is a uniform color.  This part looked great!  Then we put the oven at 200, slapped the rice on some aluminum foil and baked for 10 minutes, stir and bake for 5 more.  It was amazing!  It actually worked.  I did this project with my 5 year old, Morgan, and she loved it.  The rice felt so awesome when she ran her fingers through it... okay, I did it too.  We did 5 different colors.  My hope was to use it to make some colorful designs like this one or to incorporate it into a rainbow project.  We had 5 foil packets of different colored rice on the counter and then Morgan said can we put some of them together?  I said "sure, just take a little bit though."  So, she did... she took a little bit of each one and put them on the red - ugh, not exactly what I meant, but oh well.  I got a big bowl and we combined them all.  It was an awesome sensory activity!  It smelled like fruit punch and felt really cool.  They sat in the bowl for a few days and each of the kids would walk by and just run their hands through it.  The rice is in neat jars now and we are looking for a cool craft (and some time) to use the colored rice. 


2 C rice
1 package Kool-Aid
1/2 T warm water.

Combine Kool-Aid and water.  Stir until dissolved.  Add to rice (we put it in a zip top bag) and mush around until the rice is colored evenly.  Either let air dry (boring) or place on foil and bake at 200 degrees for 10 minutes, stir and bake 5 more minutes.

Got some ideas on how we can "create" with it?  Let us know, we'll try it and post pictures. 

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