How to Color Rice the EASY Way

Kids will love using this colorful diy colored rice in sensory bins and play. Wondering how to color rice? We will show you how to color rice the easy way – you only need 3 ingredients to make this colorful, fun rice. Dying Rice is inexpensive and super simple for using in sensory activities and crafts with preschool, pre k, kindergarten, and first grade students.

How to Color Rice

I have to admit I was always a little intimidated by dying rice. Not sure why, it was actually one of the easiest projects I’ve done! This super cheap material is great for filling up your sensory bins and using to make easy crafts for kids! Let me show you how to color rice the easy way that only takes 3 ingredients. This simple tutorial on how to make colored rice is SUPER easy! Get ready to have lots of fun with your preschoolers, toddlers, kindergartners, grade 1, and grade 2 students.

Dying Rice

All you need to make this fun sensory material with so many uses for sensory bins, tracing letters, and educational activities is:

rice (any kind will do – buy the cheap stuff)
rubbing alcohol (2 teaspoons per color)
food coloring (standard McCormick food coloring will do)
large ziplock bags for mixing

easy way for dying rice for a variety of crafts and projects

Coloured rice

Put 2 teas rubbing alcohol (find it in the band-aid isle) and food coloring in a large ziplock bag.

How to make colored rice

Add 2 cups cheap white rice.

simple way to make coloured rice with just 3 ingredients and 10 minutes

Color Rice

Shake and ‘knead’ to blend thoroughly.

leave rice on a paper towel to dry before adding it to your sensory bin

How to color rice with rubbing alcohol

Pour rice on paper towel lined cookie sheet. (This helps it dry quicker) It might be slightly smelly of the rubbing alcohol so you may want to do this on a day you can open windows or better yet can put the tray outside to dry quicker in the sun! It takes a couple hours.

fun to make rainbow rice for sensory boxes

Multi Colored Rice

That’s it, simple right?!? You can use the colored rice in sensory boxes or a myriad of other projects. Coming up next is how I used our colored rice!! So tell me, what do you use your colored rice for?