Rainbow rice garden

I pinned this (http://shareandremember.blogspot.com/2011/06/rainbow-rice-garden-sensory-play.html) wayyyy long ago and finally did it today. It really is as simple as she makes it sound. I made sure to invest in getting the liquid watercolors (http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?product=117&keyword=liquid+watercolor&scategoryid=0&CategorySearch&Brand&Price) before I did it instead of the food coloring, because I wanted more of a color variety. Amazing results, seriously.

For each color, I took a gallon-sized Ziploc bag, dumped 4 cups of rice, 2T of liquid watercolor, and 3T of rubbing alcohol in, then sealed it and massaged it around to coat the rice evenly. Once it was evenly coated, I dumped it out onto paper towels on my tarp and let it dry outside. I didn't check it for like an hour and they were 100% dry at that point. I'm sure that they were dry earlier. Here they are drying initially.

Close up of the purple

Warning-- if you have anywhere to go looking like a grown-up right afterwards, wear gloves. And long pants. And long sleeves. Maybe a HAZMAT suit? My hands afterwards (my legs/feet/arms/clothes were all speckled as well, but not nearly as badly-- those liquid watercolors are definitely messy!).

Then once they dried, I combined them in a single container.

Close-up of the rice-- I did pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Turned out beautifully!