There are so many simple and fun ideas on this site. Today the girls and I made some colored rice. I Googled it and the basic idea is 2 tsp. of rubbing alcohol, some food coloring (gel or liquid), and 1 cup of rice. I used some zipper bags and let the girls hold them while I put in the ingredients. Then we sealed them and squished them until everything was mixed up. They kept asking for more colors! I am almost out of rice again. I will have to start buying the HUGE bag.
I think that we may dump the big tub of dried beans and put the rice in it. That or we'll use the ginormous plastic storage tub to hold the rice. The girls can use measuring cups, funnels, spoons, toy construction trucks, and other things to play with it. We can also use it to make pretty paper weights or Eye Spy bottles. It's a cheap and easy activity to do with the kids.
What did we do with that rice? We made Eye Spy bottles today! The rice dried on the stovetop (no heat) all day. I stirred it often to break up clumps. The thinner you can spread it out, the better. When the girls are older, I will send them on a scavenger hunt to find items. Today, I snuck around and found odds n' ends to pop into the bottles. I have a bunch of beads and buttons around. Then I added some other things: plastic toys from the party favors section and some buttons that I bought. The girls had fun choosing what to put in the bottle and helping to scoop the rice. We used some small soda bottles that were washed and dried. The end result:
The girls really liked the little frogs and some imprinted coins from a trip to Disney (high school band trip). They added beads and buttons, too.
This one has some sports-themed buttons that I found at a local craft store. I added some old charms from broken jewelry, pebbles, buttons, shells, etc..... Be sure to glue the lids on or screw them down very, very, very tightly.
