This easy colored rice not only serves as the base material for a pretty craft, but doubles as a sensory material for toddlers!

You’ll need to prepare the batches of rice the night before. For each color, spoon 1 cup uncooked rice into a small zip-top plastic bag, then add 3 tablespoons white vinegar and 5 to 10 drops of food coloring, depending how saturated you want the color to be. I would have made a full rainbow of 6 colors but only had 5 cups of rice, so we skipped orange!

Spoon each color onto a paper plate and let dry overnight.

In the morning, Veronika spotted the rice and instantly wanted to play. I spooned it onto a craft tray, where the rows of colors were almost pretty enough to be a game in their own right!

But we had other plans for this particular rice. I set out pieces of cardboard to be Veronika’s canvas, because you’ll need a sturdy background for this particular art medium. We dumped on big pools of white glue and I showed her how to sprinkle the rice down to make pretty colored designs.

Veronika loved choosing which colors to add where. As a two-year-old, her design was obviously very abstract, but older kids can make deliberate pictures with the glue before covering with rice. Sunny skies, rainbows, or flowers would all be beautiful made from the rice!

Whenever you need to, pat the rice onto the glue and then tilt the cardboard over the tray to dump off any excess. Keep working until the design comes out to your child’s satisfaction.

And of course, when the artwork was done, the leftover rice was a delight for Veronika to scoop through. She loved seeing the beautiful colored grains on her fingers!