Rainy Day? Rice Play!

 Here's another crafty idea from the Pinterest files that we like to break out on rainy days.

A rice sandbox!

I found the pin for glow in the dark rice and thought it would be neat idea and fairly easy to pull off. We use the Dollar Tree for a vast majority of our crafty supplies so it was pretty inexpensive as well. Four bottles of neon paint, a bag of white rice, and a clear plastic container, plus a larger container, put our project at a total of $7.

The procedure is fairly straight forward. Divide the rice into baggies, dump in paint, mix around and then open to dry. According to the pin, it should take roughly 4-6 hours to dry. I may have added too much paint, however, so our drying process took a few days. I ended up having to remove the rice from its baggie and spreading it out on parchment paper to achieve total dryness. 

Once it was completely dry, I was able to break apart the clumps and mix the colors into our bin for play time. 

Middle being the rambunctious kid that he is, dove right in and I quickly realized that the bin we purchased was not enough to keep him contained. We ended up with rice up over the sides and into the floor. But on a another shopping trip I found a bin with much taller sides that worked perfectly. Even more perfect was that Middle received a gift from his grandmother of a mini sand pail and tools. He loves to use the shovel and rake to fill the little bucket and dump it out. Currently waiting on the day he starts running cars or trains through there. 

When we're not using the rice, I store it in the original bin I purchased because it has a lid. Waste not, want not!