Christmas Sensory Rice Box

A rice box is one of our favourite sensory experiences, we regularly bring out a rice box as an after school activity. I always try to adhere to quick and easy activities and this is, once you've dyed your rice. Dying the rice isn't as much of a faff as you think. I follow the instructions from the Happy Hooligans website. Once you've done it it lasts for ages so honestly it's worth spending ten minutes creating the rice.

So for our Christmas sensory box I dyed four cups of rice red and four cups of rice green following the Happy Hooligans instructions and I left it overnight to dry. I chose red and green as they are the colours I immediately think of when it comes to Christmas but you can choose whatever colours you like.

The next day once the rice was dry I filled a box with both colours then I added some green and red items to the box. I included some cups, spoons, milk lids, some Christmas bows and Christmas stickers. Obviously you can add whatever items you like, jingle bells, tinsel, scoops, bowls, anything goes! When I set up a rice box I always use our tuff spot tray. I find the tuff tray is great for using as a boundary. I also put a mess mat underneath the tuff spot so I'm reducing the amount of rice on the carpet to the bear minimum, well hopefully!

My two older children (6 & 4) always love a rice sensory box so they both got stuck in. It was interesting at first watching them trying to keep the red and green separated but then ultimately they mixed the colours together. They did lots of scooping, pouring and tipping. It really does keep them busy for ages!

Now you might be worried about the clean up but when using a tuff spot and a mess mat it really doesn't take long. I simply tip the tuff spot rice back into the box then tip the remaining rice into the box. Any rice that did make it onto the carpet is easily hoovered up. Once you've finished simply store your rice in an airtight container and use again. We've already used our rice for a Christmas edition of pom pom rescue.

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